Lies My Father Told Me: Part Two
by Elizabeth Shawnessey
Summary: After walking into their motel room to find their father waiting for them, Sam and Dean are given a job involving an unusual spree of murders. However, that's not the only thing unusual. Set between "Shadow" and "Hell House"; fourth in a series; long.
1. Prologue One

Author's Note: Hey, guys. I'm so sorry this took so long to do. I know some of y'all have me on e-mail updates and might have been hoping for this sometime in January like I promised a few, but with the holidays and everything going on in late December, it made getting away from family to write a chapter or two a little hard. Also there was the fact that I was really self-conscious about the continuation of LMFTM1 and wanted to make sure I didn't step on the wrong toes when it came to making sure everything fit. I still had a bit of a hard time in chapter eleven of this one, but I really hope it doesn't show! Anyway, uh, on with the show!

* * *

><p>Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just <strong>strongly recommend <strong>it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

PROLOGUE ONE

Bayview Memorial Park  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Thursday, August 3, 2006  
>4:35 AM<p>

**T**yler Durden and Jaime Karnes loved to race each other in the early mornings. As they ran through Bayview Memorial Park, the smell of dawn on the horizon and a light darkness in the sky, Tyler could feel the cool wind whipping past him as he headed toward the commemorative statue at the peninsula poking out over the ocean. It was the spot where Tyler usually took a heavy-breathing Jaime into his arms and the two looked out at the Atlantic until the sun rose high in the sky.

But they were at least a hundred yards from that point. Picking up his pace, Tyler dodged the bench blocking his path and made his way onto the grass, loving the softness under his sneakers. Jaime was still on the sidewalk, near the center to avoid anything jumping out in front of her, with her ponytail bouncing abruptly behind her. For a minute, Tyler's eyes absorbed his girlfriend's slender, muscular body. The way she moved under that skin-tight track suit was something enchanting, causing him to want to stop right there and pull her into a claiming kiss. But he knew she did that on purpose. He had once made a comment about the way the spandex contoured her body, and now she wore it as often as possible to distract him from his goal.

Turning his attention toward the stature at the point, he could make out a few sleeping birds in the moon overhead. The closer they approached, the more birds scattered until the iron sculpture was free of living creatures. Eventually, Tyler reached out and touched the cold metal first, letting out a victorious sigh.

"Got you this time!" Tyler laughed as Jaime slowed to a stop behind him.

"First time in a long time," Jaime breathed, smirking.

In the silver moonlight, Tyler could make out the shining blonde of Jaime's hair as she pulled it from its ponytail and allowed the wind to push it off her sweaty forehead. As the flaxen locks tumbled over her shoulders, framing her triangular face, Tyler smiled at her. She looked gorgeous with her dewy complexion and watery blue eyes, the color of which matched the ocean on a sunny day. Her body was thin and limber from years of working out and playing tennis, with nice sized breasts that Tyler loved to grab when they were alone in her bedroom. In his mind, Jaime Karnes was the perfect girlfriend—one that was so unbelievable that it made Tyler wonder why she was with him in the first place.

At twenty-two, when they had first met, he had been awkward, nerdy, and underweight. He had spent the majority of his time in his parents' basement, rebuilding computers and forgetting to eat most meals in fear of slowing down; causing him to appear gaunt and ghost-like. His two friends, Lester and Oliver, had been by his side while he tried to install an amount of RAM on an old Dell that wouldn't be able to handle it, upgrade graphics cards that were long-obsolete, or find a way to convert his screen resolution from standard to HDMI. They fed into his interests, bringing snacks and movies with them whenever they came over, and watched him work endlessly—sometimes giving input on whether or not adding a 250 gigabyte hard drive to a 1994 Gateway was a good idea. They never left the bottom of his parents' house, not even for a food run, instead waiting for Tyler's mom to take a trip to the store to save them from having to uproot themselves from their stations.

It wasn't, or hadn't seemed like at the time, a boring existence. He had enjoyed and had a passion for working with technology, but with no money for college, he had to do the best he could. After awhile, however, his father had started to become outwardly vocal over his disapproval of Tyler spending days "below deck"—his father worked on boats for a living and used the terminology far too much—and thought he could change his son's demeanor if he could find Tyler a girlfriend. Night after night, Dad called him upstairs to talk to a new girl he had invited for dinner; but as soon as he saw them, Tyler often turned around to return to his basement dwelling. Finally giving up on the idea, Dad had stopped asking his friends' daughters over, and allowed Tyler to stay where he was.

One night near Christmas, at a mandatory party his mother's work was throwing, Tyler sat near the door, sending text message after text message to Oliver about the new slim computer his friend had bought over the weekend. As the two discussed the features and the pain it was having to uninstall pre-installed software, Jaime had entered with her father. From there, the phone conversation ended and Tyler began to turn his attention to the girl who looked like the perfect mix of Alicia Silverstone and Princess Leia. She had been the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen, and he was interested in her far more than he thought he could be interested in any PC part out there.

Heading for her, Tyler's mother had stopped him, suddenly intrigued with her son's pursuit, and quickly explained that Jaime had just returned home from graduating Stanford in the fall—a full semester early. Enticed by the idea that she was not only smart enough to get into one of the top colleges in the country, but to have graduated sooner than her classmates, Tyler had crossed the room and began talking to her. After awhile, he had seen past the outward beauty and intelligence to notice that Jaime was what his father would call "the total package". She understood what he meant when he started rambling on about NVIDIA, even adding her own opinion to the conversation, and listened patiently as he began weighing the options when it came to the difference between Windows and Macintosh—shocked when she said that she would always choose Windows for their processor speed.

"It was love at first geek," Jaime later said after they had been going out for awhile.

The months passed after that, with Tyler becoming less and less reclusive and more and more outgoing. By the time spring rolled around, the two of them had made a regular thing out of racing each other through the park in the early mornings. Not only was the change good for him, but it also helped him come out of his shell a bit, allowing him to socialize more than just sitting in his basement with his two friends, eating Pringles and watching _Star Wars_ for the thousandth time.

Now that summer was beginning to fade, however, Tyler had a feeling their morning routine was about to become a thing of the past.

A few mornings ago, he had heard Jaime on the phone with her father, discussing her options for graduate school. She had told him multiple times that she had put off heading for Brown University in the spring to go for her Masters because she had wanted a break from college, but now that the fall semester was just around the bend, she had a limited amount of time to get everything together and sorted out. Due to the look on his girlfriend's face when he had picked her up earlier that morning, he had a feeling she had gotten word from the school in Rhode Island and that their days together were numbered.

Not wanting to think about it, Tyler placed his foot on the metal railing barring anyone from falling into the ocean below to stretch beside Jaime. While he worked on his hamstrings, letting the cold breeze dry the sweat at his temples, he watched as Jaime lifted her arms over her head and bent forward, displaying the straightness of her back. Unable to resist her defenseless stance, Tyler dropped his foot onto the ground and grabbed Jaime around the middle, burying his face into her damp neck as he held her from behind. As she laughed at the surprise, Tyler soaked in the sound, wondering if he would only be hearing the delicate noise on weekends and during holidays.

"You know," Jaime began, a laugh still in her tone, "I just don't know what to do with you, Tyler Durden."

"I can think of a few things," Tyler winked.

Smacking him from behind, Jaime shook her head, the feather-like tickle of her hair on his chest. "That's not what I mean. I mean _you_. You're so different than that scrawny little kid I met eight months ago. I like it."

Grinning, Tyler rubbed her arms with his hands against the chilly air. "Well, I'm glad at least someone does."

Standing there in silence, Tyler continued the motion with his palms, hoping that the warmth would radiate throughout her body into his. It was unusually cold for an early morning, reminding him of the winters he had spent in Ohio when he was younger. It had snowed and frosted overnight, often with the frigidness wafting into the house and causing anyone inside to pull the blankets tighter. Thought it wasn't cold enough to freeze, it was definitely chilly enough to where he could see his breath.

Ignoring it to follow through with their morning ritual, Tyler rolled his shoulders back and stared out at the ocean. The blackness of the waves crashed against the shore, swallowing everything beneath it like a giant tongue. When the water retracted back into the bay, it collided again moments later in a monotony that was comforting. No matter how often the waves hit the sandy stretch of beach below the peninsula, nothing about it changed except the size of the swells. The noise was calming as they stood there, every now and then seeing their breath in puffs of white against the indigo sky. After awhile, the blue of the horizon changed, becoming lighter, but not bright enough to be considered daybreak. Waiting for it, Tyler pulled Jaime tighter and sniffed the strawberry perfume of her hair, surprised that he could still pick up on it over the scent of sweat and sea.

Suddenly, something that didn't sound or smell familiar came from the foliage off to their right. Moving his head to see if anything was there, Tyler strained his eyes and breathed in the cold air, half expecting to see something pop out of the bushes. When nothing did, he shrugged to himself before turning his attention back to their teal surroundings.

_Good to know I'm imagining things_, Tyler smirked.

A moment later and the sound of rustling leaves came from his right, causing him to whip his head in the direction of the same plants. By now, the sky was light enough to make out the shapes of branches moving in the thicket of trees in the distance. In the wind came the smell of an overheated computer, along with the hint of exhaust. Furrowing his brow, Tyler let his arms fall from around Jaime as he headed toward the moving undergrowth.

"Where are you going?" Jaime asked, sounding slightly disappointed at his release.

"I'll be right back," he whispered.

Walking slowly, Tyler placed his sneakers lightly on the ground as he made his way over to the brush. The closer he got to the shuffling greenery, the stronger the odor of burning electronics became, causing him to throw the back of his wrist toward his nose to stifle the scent. He had read about smells like that before, that it was the byproduct of o-zone, but had never actually experienced the sensation firsthand. His science classes in high school had always said sniffing it would be as dangerous as sniffing sharpies, trying to deter any of the students from trying it. Unfortunately, it was a cover-up for laziness seeing as the pollutant was already in the air to begin with.

Shaking his head to get rid of the thought of scientific facts to focus on the task at hand, Tyler stepped off the path winding around the trees and into the dried leaves on the ground. As soon as he did, the wind around him picked up, blowing his short brown hair back and causing his loose clothes to whip behind him. Over the loudness of the hurricane-like currents, Tyler could hear Jaime calling him. Turning around to make sure she was alright, he could see a panicked look on her face as her ocean blue eyes darted somewhere behind him.

"Tyler, look out!"

All of a sudden, Tyler could feel his feet being lifted off the ground as he was propelled toward a sapling further into the small forest. The sound of the tree snapping in half cracked throughout the night air, resounding over the crash of waves behind him. Getting up, he could see a dark shape at the mouth of the thicket. It was tall and burley, with long, scraggly hair and tight, striped shirt that hugged its bulky, masculine form. As Tyler backed up, the man, or what he thought was a man, headed toward him a glacial pace, measuring each step and keeping his eyes locked on Tyler. The two continued their slow movements until a twig snapped beneath Tyler's feet, momentarily taking his attention away from the man.

When he looked up, he was gone.

"Tyler?"

"I'm ri—"

But he didn't get to finish his sentence. A moment later and the man was there, blinking into existence, his hand raised to smack Tyler into another tree. Doing so, Tyler's back hit the trunk with a loud whack, his shoulder blades aching from the impact. As he sank to the ground, the seat of his sweatpants dropping into mud, he looked around for the man. It was darker this deep into the woods, but with the sun rising, the blackness gradually lessened until he spotted the man's dark shape and was able to see enough of his attacker.

What he saw, however, wasn't pretty.

The man's face was cut open from the corners of his mouth to the apples of his cheeks with a surgically-modified smile, while the area surrounding his nose was bruised and broken from beatings similar to the ones he was dishing out on Tyler. His eyes were dark and savage, as if he only had one sinister thing in mind, and as he grasped his victim around the collar of his shirt, he let out a feral laugh that chilled Tyler to the bone.

"What do you say we play a little game?" the man asked, the slashes in his cheeks reddening as he spoke.

Pulling Tyler to his feet, the man shoved his back into the tree trunk with one hand and held out an empty palm with his other. A moment later and a scalpel appeared between his outstretched fingers, faded gray underneath the muted blue leaking in through the thicket around them. At the sight of it, Tyler struggled against the man's hold, but his strength surpassed Tyler's own meager muscles.

As he stood pinned there, the sound of leaves crunching under a slight weight came from behind his attacker. A glance over the man's shoulder told Tyler that Jaime had come into the brush looking for him.

"Oh, my God."

A laugh escaped the man as he turned his head toward Jaime, the steel of the instrument glinting off the faraway sun.

"Run! Jaime! Get help!"

Gasping, Jaime turned and sprinted back the way she had come, disappearing behind the thicket of trees she had just emerged into. When she was gone, Tyler looked at his attacker, a feeling of deep dread coming over him at the sight of the man's determined glare. His gray eyes were alight with ferocity. "You robbed me!"

"I didn't!" Tyler protested, hoping the man would understand that he had the wrong guy. "I don't even know you!"

"Liar!" the man growled.

Suddenly, anger began to radiate off of his attacker as Tyler stared him in the eye to keep from looking at the weapon in the man's hand. He knew he was done for with every fiber of his being, but couldn't will himself to look at the thing that would do it. Glaring at the man would make it easier. It seemed like something Han Solo would do in his final moments against a terrible foe.

Seeming to pick up on his false bravery, the man smiled, the scars deepening with the gesture. A moment later and Tyler could see the scalpel being raised in the man's hand as he moved it toward his victim's face. "Open wide!"

Refusing to do so, Tyler moved away, but he wasn't quick enough. A cold hand gripped his cheeks and slammed the back of his head into the tree. Stars came with the bang, followed by everything tilting. In his slanted vision, Tyler could see that the man was about to jam the sharp instrument into his mouth to give him an identical fake smile. Flailing his arms in an attempt to fight him off, Tyler felt his hands go through his attacker like jell-o. A second later and cold metal found its way onto his tongue before something sharp stung the inside of his cheek.

In an instant, everything in Tyler's body went numb as the scalpel began to slice at his mouth. He could feel the blood on his tongue as the blade cut, even the dull pain of the thing jabbing at his mouth, but couldn't sense anything else. The tree behind him felt like nothing and the cold air seemed warm. A moment later and his vision became starkly contrast as the fear enveloping him caused him to pass out.


	2. Prologue Two

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

PROLOGUE TWO

Bayview Super 8  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Thursday, August 3, 2006  
>10:13 AM<p>

**S**am Winchester had a hard time seeing beyond the mess as he looked around at his father's disheveled motel room. As he stood in the doorway, staring out at the piles of clothes on the floor, fast food containers spilling out of the bins, and crumpled up pieces of paper heaped beside the television, he was oddly reminded of the first time he had stumbled upon John Winchester's temporary home.

Ten months ago, Sam had been living a solitary life in California, having decided to leave home to attend Stanford four years prior instead of carrying on with "the family business". It had been a decision that had broken everything he knew in two parts, with Dad and Sam's older brother, Dean, continuing to hunt down ghosts, demons, and any other kind of supernatural creature while Sam headed into a routine of studying, classes, and finals. At the time, he had been convinced that the university had been the place for him, that he was safe and away from the scarring existence he had grown up knowing, and had even been certain enough to bury that part of his life under a heaping pile of denial somewhere in his chest. In the time he was away from Dean and Dad, Sam had become attached to the school, to a small group of friends, and even to someone he had loved more than anything else in the world: his girlfriend, Jessica.

However, the blissful existence had only lasted so long. Part-way into his senior year, Sam had heard a noise in the middle of the night, jerking him awake. Letting his training from his childhood kick in, the incessant Marine boot camp his father had single-handedly run between hunts, Sam had crept his way through the house, his senses on high alert as everything he had grown up knowing came flooding back to him. As possible different species of abnormalities ran through his mind, Sam had paused in the doorway to see a shadow pass by the frame—that of a tall, lean man with spiky, light-brown hair and a strong profile. Jumping into attack-mode, Sam had fought with whoever was in his house before pinning the intruder to the floor, only to reaffirm what Sam had instinctively known—Dean was there, looking for him.

After explaining the situation to him, that he was there because Dad had gone missing in the middle of a hunt, Dean had begun to persuade Sam to help him search for their father. Not really wanting to go but knowing it was the right thing to do, especially after Dean had made him aware of just how severe the circumstances were based on a static-filled voicemail on his brother's phone, Sam had packed his bags and left, promising Jessica that he would be back before Monday morning for the ever-important law school interview.

Unfortunately, that was the last time he would ever see her alive.

Heading to Jericho, California, Sam and Dean searched the city high and low for their father, only stumbling upon his deserted motel room, the journal Dad would never in his life leave behind, and an abandoned case of a Woman in White haunting a stretch of highway leading in and out of town. Recognizing the harshness of the situation, Sam had helped his brother in putting the spirit to rest, but hadn't agreed to follow a set of coordinates Dad had left for them on one of the last pages in his journal. There was something in the back of his mind that told him to head home to Jessica, something he at first thought of as a nagging reminder of the promise he made that he would return home sometime Monday morning.

However, that wasn't what had been pulling him back to the apartment he and his girlfriend had shared for the past year and a half.

Moments after walking through the front door, Sam had seen something he had had nightmares about for days beforehand. Upon the ceiling above the bed he had been resting on was Jessica, a look of frozen terror and helplessness on her face that Sam had only seen in his dreams. Her midsection was cut open and bleeding in large, cold drops onto Sam's forehead while her wide, green eyes shot him a silent, fearful warning. Getting up, Sam's first instinct had been to help her, but the sudden erumpent of fire behind her had deterred him from an attempt—instead causing him to flail weakly at the flames eating the apartment alive. A heartbeat later and Dean was there, though Sam had no idea why his brother had returned, pulling him free of the blaze and out into the street.

In the minutes that followed while the two of them watched the place billow with smoke, Sam felt a mixture of emotions he hadn't been able to suppress. Anger, revenge, and sadness all fought to take control before a sudden understanding won out. For twenty-two years prior to that night, Dad had been hunting the creature that had done the exact same thing to his wife, and Sam and Dean's mother, Mary. In all that time, Sam hadn't been able to comprehend the desire for vengeance, but with the death of Jessica, he finally knew and was bent on the same type of retribution. He wanted, more than anything, to find the thing that had killed his girlfriend, the thing that had interrupted his life so badly, and to throttle it until he couldn't take it anymore. In his last bout of energy for the night, Sam had pledged to Dean that he would stay by his side until that moment came, until they had closed in on the thing that had ruined their lives, and had finally rejoined the family business.

However, his anger and resentment for the creature only lasted so long before it was replaced with exhaustion. After a few days of searching through the wreckage of the fire and finding nothing before leaving town for good, Sam had begun to have nightmares about the blaze, reviewing everything that had happened that night down to the moment Dean had pulled him from the flames. For the months following, he had barely slept, deciding that it was better that way instead of seeing the one person he had loved more than life itself die once again, before his brother began to become worried. In an attempt to appease him, Sam had tried to sleep the whole night through, only to be rewarded with the same nightmare with a different outcome—this time with Sam and Dean dying in the fire as well. Giving up on sleep entirely, Sam had begun to bury himself in his work before the nightmare came true once again… last night.

For the past two months, the brothers had been on ordered lockdown by their father after the hunt for the thing that killed Mom—which Dad believed to be a demon—nearly killed them in Chicago, Illinois. Heading to an out-of-the-way motel in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the two had stayed inside for weeks, only leaving for food and the occasional late-night drive, before becoming antsy for something to do. At the time, Sam had been convinced that he was either going to hunt or return to Stanford—figuring it would be the productive thing to do. Dean, on the other hand, had been convinced otherwise, telling Sam that they needed to stay put and follow Dad's orders. Ultimately, though, his older brother began to wear himself thin trying to keep Sam stationary, and had eventually agreed to work a job four hours from where they were staying, a case in Louisville, Kentucky.

After putting the spirit killing descendants of its murderers to rest, the brothers had headed to two more jobs: one in Green River, Arkansas and the other in Bayview, Maine. However, the latter, which they believed to be a poltergeist haunting a batty old lady in town, had proved to be a null lead, with nothing pointing to ghostly activity except for the flickering lights—which Dean discovered was due to the neighbor's kids taunting the elderly woman. Giving the kids an ear-full, the pair had headed farther inland to Brewer, lying in wait for something to pop up, before they were pointed in the direction of a cursed movie replaying its viewer's worst nightmare.

Unfortunately, after an investigation of the victims' backgrounds, places of work, and houses, they had come up with nothing that would lead them toward the person behind the circulation of the film, pointing the brothers to the local police station before viewing the movie themselves. While at the Penobscot County precinct, the two had gotten more than they bargained for as they argued outside, the brothers stopping dead in their tracks when they saw their father, who had made it sound as if he was going into hiding himself, heading to his truck in the parking lot across the way with a tall, busty brunette in tow. Angry, Sam had been set on abandoning the case they were working to figure out what was going on, convinced that Dad had left his hiding station to follow a lead on the demon he was hunting. Ultimately, though, he had come to the conclusion that he could find out what was going on once they were done, calming down enough to try to solve the case of the haunted DVD.

However, watching the video had been more unsettling for Sam than he could admit. After popping it into his laptop and seeing his nightmare played out on the computer screen, a fire had erupted much like the night of Jessica's death, trapping him and his brother inside. Biting back the fear that came with the situation, the two of them had escaped the blaze a second time, leading them right to the perpetrator of the attacks. Following her to the docks in the next town over, the brothers put an end to the witch, Emily Munroe, before Sam narrowed in on Dad's motel room in Bayview the next morning. Knowing that he had a small window of time to search through the contents inside, he had convinced his brother to wait on the corner of the lot while they watched their father drive toward the highway, his new partner in the passenger's seat. When the brothers were sure the other two were gone, Dean pulled into the lot and took watch while Sam went inside.

Now Sam stood at the head of the mess, able to discern, if nothing else, which side belonged to Dad and which side was clearly the girl's by the fact that the bed closest to the window was barely slept in. Sam knew his father well enough to know that Dad hardly closed his eyes when he was in the middle of something, preferring to save his rest for when he was done rather than lose momentum on his research.

Letting his eyes pass over the disheveled mattresses, Sam zeroed in on the back of the room and crossed over to it, careful not to disturb the semi-circle of salt encompassing the door. Deciding that the bathroom portion was the best place to start, he bent down beside the sink and opened the cabinets, immediately setting to work.

In all honesty, he didn't know what he was looking for or what had caused him to feel so strongly about searching the place. At first, he assumed it to be the fact that he was under the impression Dad was closing in on the demon without any regard to his sons, deciding to hunt it alone rather than allow them to help. Now that he thought about it, however, he realized that that was only half true. His father had been tracking the thing for the past ten months that Sam and Dean had been following behind, and hadn't called except for a couple of times to fill them in on his progress. The first time it had happened, Sam had been as angry as he had been the night before, wanting to ditch the case to track down his father and force him into letting him help. However, that strategy had almost cost Dean his life, making Sam rethink his plan of action.

His second thought had been about the girl, Dad's new partner, and how she was a stranger to him and his brother, but Sam quickly realized that there were probably a handful of Hunters out there that Dad knew and he didn't, causing him to focus less on her and more on the fact that she was there. His father was the independent type, meaning that he almost always worked alone unless he _needed _help. The presence of a partner meant that Dad was struggling with something, though hadn't asked either of his sons for assistance. Instead, he had reached out to someone who wasn't family, leading Sam to temporarily wonder if the reason he was searching through his father's room was in partial spite and curiosity. What was it that Dad was working on that he couldn't ask Sam or Dean for help with?

Clearing his throat and focusing back on the task at hand, Sam reached into the cabinets beneath the sink to pull out the contents, only finding a bag of toiletries, a package of unopened razors, and a crumpled piece of paper underneath. Remaining crouched, he leaned his arm over the side of the basin to steady himself as he unwrapped the slip of what he recognized to be a receipt, letting the name he had known Dad to use become smoothed out as he continued pulling at the folded edges.

Wrinkling it buck up, Sam tossed it further into the depths of the cupboard before sifting through the toiletries, letting his mind wonder once again. He had searched all of Dad's known aliases online through cracks in the local motels' registries, eventually stumbling upon the one his father hadn't used all that often on the "active guest" list of the Bayview Super 8. Edgar Cayce, the famous psychic and his two sons, had been a name Dad picked up while working a rawhead case in the man's hometown of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, only using it every so often due to the notoriety that came with the pseudonym. It seemed, though, that Dad figured the residents of the small, seaside town wouldn't connect the dots and hadn't batted an eye, accidentally leading Sam straight to his location.

However, Sam had a feeling his father had used the _nom de guerre_ for a reason other than unsuspecting check-in clerks. In the back of his mind, Sam couldn't help but think that Dad knew his sons were in town and was partly sticking nearby to keep an eye on them. Ultimately, though, that made him wonder why Dad hadn't busted into their motel room to give them an ear-full of incensed words. He and his brother were supposed to be in Indiana, not Maine, and if their father knew that, he should have lectured them incessantly until they returned back to where they had been ordered to stay.

Tapping his fingers absently against the countertop for a moment, Sam pushed the thought away and placed the toiletries bag back under the sink. Shutting the cabinet doors, he stood up and took in his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were encircled with shadowed purple bags of tiredness, with scratches on his cheeks and neck from where he had fallen against the glass on the pavement right after jumping from the window of the burning motel room. His lips were paled, chapped, and cracked, and his chestnut hair was tousled and falling into his deep emerald eyes. His dark clothes seemed to be hanging off of his thin, muscular frame as though two sizes too big, picked out of the bottom of his duffle bag right after waking up.

If his brother hadn't been feeling strangely unvocal that morning, he would have told Sam he looked like crap. But neither of them had said much on the way over to Dad's motel, both of them knowing that Dean was against the idea of breaking and entering, thinking it to be a betrayal of their father's trust. Though Sam knew it to be true, he still couldn't fight against the feeling that told him he should be doing this, that there was something there, underneath the mess, that he needed to see for himself.

Holding onto that feeling, Sam continued on. Heading over to the dresser sitting between the bathroom portion of the room and the television, his eyes fell onto the various electronic devices sitting on top—a tape recorder, night vision camera, and an infrared thermal scanner amongst them—before pulling open the topmost drawer. Inside were two stacks of men's clothes, folded neatly in a military fashion, with weapons jammed in between the gaps. Lifting up a few of the shirts to check for anything hidden underneath, Sam bit his lip and shut the drawer. Moving onto the next, he saw rolls of brightly-colored tops lined up along the bottom, with the graphic printed across them staring toward the ceiling. Grabbing the red one falling loose at the end, Sam held it between his fingers to read the white text splattered across the feminine v-neck: _University of Louisville_.

Frowning, he rolled it back up and replaced it.

After searching the rest of the dresser and finding nothing, Sam crossed over to the television, pulling at the drawers on the cabinet underneath to see if any of them opened. When none of them did, he let his eyes roll up to the newspaper clippings tacked to the wall behind the TV set. They seemed to be arranged in a strange order, as if separated by area rather than content. Closer to the dresser was a cluster of articles placed in Oregon, some of the titles reading _Unseasonable Weather Hits Portland_ and _Lightning Storms in Eugene_. Beneath that group was another set, these in California with similar titles. Farther to the right, things seemed to become less about weather and more about cattle mutilations, with cities like Cabery, Illinois, Buckner, Kentucky, Bradford, Arkansas, and Bayview, Maine being hit with sparse slaughters.

Reading the article about Bayview, Sam remembered seeing it in the paper before finding the case in Brewer, thinking nothing of it at the time. It seemed, however, something about it had struck Dad, something that might have been enough to get him to drive all the way to Maine. Unfortunately, nothing about it seemed to spark an interest in Sam, nor explain what his father was doing following a trail of livestock deaths.

Sighing, Sam's eyes wandered over to the door before falling on the bistro set beneath the window. The table and chairs were smashed between the wall and the nearest bed, as if too big for the space, and were covered with books, papers, and a candy-apple red laptop with the screen popped open. Nearing the arrangement, Sam glanced at a few of the book titles—_Acting A to Z: A Young Person's Guide to a Stage or Screen Career, Getting the Part, _and _Smart Actors, Foolish Choices_—before tilting back the lid of the computer to read the sticky notes tacked to the surface. In bubbly purple handwriting were dates and times scribbled down with names underneath each. Grabbing the one in the topmost corner reading "June 19 – Kelly Taylor", he stared at it for a moment before shoving it in his pocket. Something about the name seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't place his finger on why.

Squeezing around the table, Sam pushed a few buttons on the keyboard and waited for the laptop to spring to life. When it did, a picture of the Yale University mascot stared back at him from behind a gray dialogue box prompting a password. Deciding that he didn't have enough time to try to hack into the computer, Sam shut it down again and tapped his fingers against the base out of habit.

He had been sure he would find something here, something that would tell him what Dad was doing or why he needed outside help, but had instead found nothing but an innocuous motel room. Disappointed, he let out a deep sigh and headed for the door, milling over the possibility that maybe Dean could make sense of it all—even though his brother was against the idea of snooping in the first place.

Twisting open the knob, Sam stared out at the overcast day and crossed the lot to where his brother stood perched against the trunk of his black, 1967 Chevrolet Impala. Glancing up, Sam noticed the gray sky seemed to fit his brother's mood, who had all but refused to help him search their father's room and instead stood idle with a sour expression.

As Sam headed to the car, he noticed that the clouds overhead were swirling threateningly, looking ready to crack open and pour rain at any moment. Stopping and resting against the low bumper of the Impala, Sam took a minute to gaze upward before turning to look at Dean. The sour expression was now gone, mixed with one of silent curiosity.

After a long moment of pensive silence while they stood there taking in the weather and milling over their own thoughts, Dean finally opened his mouth to speak, appearing as though he would do anything to not have to say the next couple of words.

"Find anything?"


	3. One

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

ONE

Bayview Lodge  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Thursday, August 3, 2006  
>12:37 PM<p>

**T**he air surrounding the Bayview Lodge felt heavy as Dean pulled the Impala into the stall outside of room seven. The sky overhead was darkened with deeper gray clouds that seemed to congregate around the small square of land the motel took up, the gloominess of the color matching the mood and telling Sam that rain was still threatening to break through.

As he climbed out of the car, shooting his older brother a look to make sure that he wasn't the only one experiencing the strange sensation, Sam reached behind him to check for the aluminum-plated 9mm he usually carried in the back waistband of his jeans—something that, along with Dean's .45, managed to be spared as the two fell overboard from Emily Munroe's yacht into the ocean. When cold metal touched his fingertips, he exchanged a frown with Dean before heading for the door.

Sam hated that his first reaction to anything suspicious was to reach for a gun, but growing up the child of a Hunter did that to him. Since he was six months old, he had been raised in a lifestyle that's motto was "shoot first, ask questions later", meaning that the only thing to do when things seemed odd was to find a weapon of choice to use against whatever might be threatening survival. For the past twenty-three years, Sam had learned that any number of things could be lurking in the shadows, waiting for their cue to jump out and attack, and that being unprepared could mean the last moments of his life were only seconds away. However, something about _this_ seemed different, as if Sam knew exactly what was hiding behind the door because he had been waiting for it ever since the encounter at the police station.

Keeping a step behind Dean, Sam waited for his brother to insert the key into the lock and twist the knob, noticing that Dean also had his hand poised over a gun concealed at the base of his spine. As the door drifted open with a slight push, Sam crowded closer to his brother, squaring his shoulders protectively as if to edge himself in front of Dean in case something hurled itself forward. After a moment, his breath caught in his chest as Sam took in the profile of a man similar in build to his older brother but with the thoughtful expression he often recognized on his own face.

_Dad…_

Scooting closer into the doorway, Sam watched while Dad got to his feet and turned toward his sons, a small grin hidden beneath the tangle of whiskers crowding his oval face. Appraising them with his large, hazel eyes, their father took in the scratches and bruises from the hunt the night before, then nodded toward Sam and Dean.

"Hey, boys."

Sam swallowed hard at the greeting, not knowing how to react. Part of him wanted to be angry, since he was still hurt over the fact that Dad had chosen to hunt alongside a new partner rather than with his own sons; while another part of him was worried. Not just over the fact that Dad was about to unload a lecture about protocol and following orders due to the fact that neither of them had—Sam had heard that speech more times than he could count—but because of the pained look on his father's face, as if something was eating him from the inside out. Dark bags encircled Dad's eyes that rivaled the ones beneath Sam's own, while his face appeared more lined than before. His black peacoat seemed looser than normal, as did his torn and frayed jeans beneath, while his hands looked dirty and worn, as though he had been digging for something in raw earth.

Something was wrong. To see his tough-as-nails father standing there, appearing as though a small gust of wind would knock him over, proved as much.

"Dad," Sam whispered, bunching his jaw and stepping into the room slowly. "Wh-what are you doing here? Are you okay?"

Dean followed behind, his hard stare softening as he looked his father up and down before shutting the door and turning on the lights. Sam did the same, noting that Dad seemed okay otherwise, though his skin looked paler than normal.

"I'm okay," Dad said finally, smiling despite his heavy tone of voice.

It was clear he was relieved that his sons were alright, though the gladness was wearing off slowly and becoming replaced with steady determination. As his hazel eyes flicked between Sam and Dean before eventually resting on Sam, he could see that his father knew what he had been doing prior to returning to the motel room. A small fire raged beneath the hardened stare, causing Sam to frown.

"What are you doing here?" Dean interrupted, pursing his lips together and shooting his brother a warning glance, obviously trying to deter an argument from starting. However, Sam knew his brother knew better. Their father was going to get out his lecture one way or another; all Dean was doing was stalling the process. "Dad?"

Pausing a moment, Dad kept his eyes on Sam, as if debating whether or not to stow the sermon. After a long minute, he cleared his throat and took a step toward his sons, reaching out his hands to squeeze their shoulders gently. Giving his father a small smile at the gesture, Sam swallowed hard and slumped slightly under the touch, feeling a temporary comfort in the grasp. Unfortunately, the ease didn't last long. A second later and Dad had released them, now digging his hands into the lining of his jacket to retrieve a folded piece of paper from one of the pockets.

"There's something I need you to do. A job," Dad answered slowly, the grin that had reappeared on his face fading into a frown as he spoke.

Suddenly, Sam was overtaken with confusion and bubbling anger. As much as he didn't want to be scolded by Dad, Sam was tempted to urge his father into a long-winded reprimand about blatant disobeyal and the importance of staying safe and out of the way. At least then the visit would seem normal. With Dad's complete silence on the subject of not only Sam and Dean leaving lockdown in Fort Wayne but Sam's breaking and entering stint, something was wrong. His father would never keep his mouth shut on issues like that, especially when it came to following orders—and the ignoring of such was unsettling.

Ultimately, that, in combination with his appearance, caused Sam to become more worried than anything, pushing everything else away for a moment to look his father in the eyes. Hardness and resolve stared back at him, along with an emotion Sam couldn't quite place, something almost like a soft apology hidden underneath it all.

Though he wanted to spark Dad's fury just for a semblance of Winchester normalcy, Sam bit it back and instead glanced at Dean, seeing that his brother was picking up on the oddness of the conversation as well. Finally, Sam let his eyes drift back over to his father as he waited for a reply, a frown on his face. "A job?"

Nodding in response, Dad unfolded the page in his hands and offered it to Sam. Grabbing it from him, Sam let his eyes scan the smeared black ink sprawled across the crinkled white paper, seeming as if the article he was holding had been printed out and stowed in Dad's pocket right after it had been ejected from the machine.

MURDER IN MEMORIAL PARK

**Bayview, ME -** It's been a long while since the tiny town of Bayview, Maine has made headlines, but it appears as if it's been almost too long.

This morning, the sleepy settlement on the coast of one of the nation's smallest states was disrupted by a gruesome murder in Jasper Collins Memorial Park. Tyler Durden, 23, had been found dead by authorities after longtime girlfriend Jaime Karnes, 22, alerted them of a situation in the wooded part of the recreational area.

Upon arrival, the man was found beaten and bloody, his face carved in a way reminiscent of the last time Bayview was mentioned in one of the more popular publications: during the 1978 Ronald Mercer serial murders.

However, it seems the gruesome tale doesn't end there. According to Karnes and a few sheriffs' deputies, Tyler Durden's attacker blinked in and out of sight before disappearing entirely.

"He was there, and then he wasn't!" says a hysterical Karnes. "It wasn't right!"

Baffled, the cops are asking for any information that might lead to the arrest of the person responsible.

Looking up, Sam handed the page to his brother before glancing at Dad. His face seemed warred with exhaustion and slight irritation, as though he had been anticipating an argument with his youngest son. Bunching his jaw, Sam tried to hold back the questions that were building in his mind, the questions that _would _cause an argument about Sam's disobedience: Why was Dad giving them a job? Why wasn't he scolding Sam for going through his motel room? And, most importantly, what was Dad doing in town?

Seeming to apprehend at least part of Sam's inquisitions, his father sighed heavily and shook his head. "I know what you're thinking, Sammy. I know I told you to lay low for awhile, but you're going to have to trust me on this. I can't tell you why, but I need this taken care of and out of the way."

Suddenly, despite Dad's haggard appearance and Dean's warning glare, Sam was unable to quell the swell of questions. As every thought he had had since stumbling upon Dad and his partner at the police station crossed his mind, Sam frowned. "But I don't understand. Dad, what are you doing here? What's going on? Are you in trouble?"

"Sam," Dean said in a low voice, shooting his brother a green-eyed glower.

"Is it the demon?" Sam continued. "Is it here? I know you're following something."

"Sam!" Dean shouted, his eyes flickering between his brother and father.

Slumping his shoulders slightly, Dad looked down at the ground, a heavy apology coming with the gesture. At the motion, Sam suddenly felt guilty for bothering his father with questions. Something was after Dad, or at least something was wrong. Under normal circumstances, John Winchester would be roaring with rage, criticizing his youngest son for his selfish actions and lack of respect. Instead, Dad appeared contrite and fatigued, as if he hadn't slept since the phone call in Indiana over two months ago.

Biting back the teeming inquiries, Sam took a deep breath before nodding to himself, suddenly flooded with empathy rather than anything else. "Okay. We'll do it."

A sense of relief overcame the room as Dad smiled graciously and Dean sighed, thankful that an argument hadn't raged between the two.

"That's my boys."

Clapping his hands on both of their shoulders again, Dad pulled his sons into a hug before releasing them. For a moment, the Winchester family stared at one another before they broke apart, Dad immediately heading toward the door. As he walked, Sam noticed a difference in Dad's gait, as though his leg had recently been broken and was still on the mend. Furrowing his brow, he watched while Dad pulled open the handle and glanced back at his sons, a wry smile on his face as he nodded toward them one last time.

When he was gone, Sam turned to ask his brother whether or not he had noticed their father's odd appearance, only to see that Dean already had his mind focused elsewhere. Across the room, his brother was bent beneath Sam's bed, reaching underneath for the laptop Sam had stashed there earlier after searching for Dad's room. Retrieving it, Dean placed the computer on the bed and sat beside it, his expressive eyes turned upward and searching Sam's face. Swallowing hard, Sam nodded and reached for their father's journal, noticing that it seemed different than normal… thinner.

As he was about to open his mouth and ask his brother whether or not he had removed a page or ten from inside, he realized that Dean wasn't the one who had been alone inside the room with the book. Flipping it open just as Dean flipped on the old, silver Dell Sam had acquired at Stanford, Sam noticed that a section of dates had been removed.

_That's suspicious_.

Looking up from the journal, Sam bit his lip and threw it aside. The noise of the leather cover slamming loudly against the wooden table beneath the window caused Dean to glance up cautiously before he returned to his work, seeming to want to stay out of whatever was going on between his brother and father.

It had always been that way with Dean whenever a feud was brewing between Sam and John Winchester—he always attempted to remain clear of the crossfire until he couldn't anymore. It appeared as though this time wasn't any different than the million other spats between them as far as Dean was concerned, though the one between father and son when it came to Sam leaving for Stanford could have left both of them with a heavyweight title.

However, this time, Sam felt differently about the argument, or lack thereof. Something was up, and Sam was intent on finding out exactly what was going on.

Unfortunately, they had a case to solve first. Though he hated to sideline the issue of his father's secrets, Sam knew he had a responsibility to the job. He had learned from the last time something similar had happened—back in Burkittsville, Indiana where Dad had called and Sam had disobeyed his order to follow a lead on a hunt, almost resulting in Dean's demise had Sam not changed his mind at the last minute—that he had to take care of the case before everything else. He had a feeling Dad would be there when they were done. He also had a feeling he would discover whatever his father was hiding or whatever he was up to before their next meeting.


	4. Two

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

TWO

Bayview Lodge  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Thursday, August 3, 2006  
>2:13 PM<p>

_**T**__his isn't a case_, Dean thought as he gazed out the crack in the thick curtains blacking out the windows, _it's a distraction._ _Dad wants us off his scent_.

Frowning, Dean turned to Sam as his brother opened another page on his Internet browser, fully engulfed in the fact-finding part of the case. Sam had been reading website after website for the past hour, trying to put pieces together about the murder in the park and what might be behind it. As he searched vigorously, making a list of possible supernatural killers on the yellow legal pad near his right hand, Dean watched his brother work, waiting for the moment that Sam abandoned the job to head off to Dad's motel room.

In the past ten months that the brothers had been hunting together, Dean had seen Sam happy, tired, and understandably furious, but he had never seen him so placid—especially when it came to dealing with Dad. After their father had walked away from their motel room and driven off down the road, Dean had crossed the room to retrieve his brother's laptop from underneath his bed, half-expecting to get into an argument about how Dean so dutifully followed Dad's orders. Instead, Sam had remained silent, as if containing his thoughts, and had instead chosen at first to sift through their father's journal before taking over the web search.

It seemed as if, had Dean not known his brother's head as well as he did, Sam had simply forgotten about what had happened outside of the police station, choosing to focus intently on the job rather than dwell on the event. However, Dean knew his brother was simply pushing through with the case to get it done and out of the way, just like Dad had asked. Unfortunately, that meant that Sammy had something up his sleeve for after the fact, something that would probably involve trailing their father to find out what he was up to, possibly even another breaking-and-entering stint.

Shaking his head, Dean pulled on his earlobe and opened his mouth to ask. In a moment of thought, he snapped it shut. If his brother had something planned, he didn't want to know what it was just yet. Arguing over what might happen once they were done with the case wasn't going to solve it any faster; it was only going to prolong the first steps of the job. And, like it or not, Dean wanted this hunt in their rearview mirror. Though he knew he shouldn't be as curious as his brother when it came to invading Dad's privacy, he couldn't help but wonder what was going on. Their father, who had called them over two months ago from a pay phone somewhere outside of Minneapolis to tell his sons to go into hiding and stay there, had just handed them a case as if the order had been revoked and the danger had subsided. Judging by Dad's appearance, the latter wasn't true in the slightest. However, what was clear was the fact that their father wanted them distracted. The why was what seemed to bother Dean more than anything else.

Suddenly, the sound of a printer knocked Dean out of his thoughts. Furrowing his brows, he shot a look at Sam as his brother reached forward to remove a sheet of paper from the out tray, trying to read the title of the reamed article over his shoulder. When he couldn't see it, Dean got to his feet to stare at the computer screen, pushing the heel of his palm into the back of his brother's chair as he leaned over to look. Various newspaper websites were up, minimized in small squares across the monitor for quicker viewing. In the top corner was the one matching the page in Sam's hand, one titled _Bayview Bashing of Local Man's Brain_.

"Catchy title," Dean commented, scanning the rest of the visible text. The article read just like the one Dad had handed them, outlining the brutal beating that had been dished out on Tyler Durden's melon before some_one_ or some_thing_ had taken a sharp object to his face. Unfortunately, something about the newsprint didn't sit well with Dean, who prided himself on having an eye for detail. The original article mentioned a man disappearing from sight as soon as the cops arrived. Though he knew most spirits, and sometimes projections, did the same thing and was perfectly plausible, what he didn't understand was why the thing had waited for the police to arrive instead of vanishing after it was through with its victim. Most ghosts didn't wait for the authorities before becoming thin air.

"Yeah," Sam smirked, shutting the computer down and pushing his chair back to get to his feet, stretching when he was fully standing. "The papers are full of them. Every one across the state seems to be reporting the story. It's like mass hysteria."

Frowning, Dean reached over the table for the discarded paper Sam had left beside his laptop, picking it up to read the rest of what he had missed onscreen. When he was done, he folded it into a small slip of paper to place in his coat pocket for future reference before turning to his brother—who was now crossing the room to grab a sweatshirt. "Any of them say anything different?"

"Not as far as I can tell," Sam admitted, tugging on the brown hoodie he had thrown over the dresser the night before. "From what I've seen, it's just everyone reporting the same story in different words. They all use the same quote, though, which leads me to think the girl who was there, Jaime, only talked to one paper."

"So you're thinking we should talk to her?"

"If she'll talk," Sam sighed. "Seeing your…" He trailed off for a moment to swallow hard, his eyes falling to the floor from where they met Dean's across the room. "It's not something you get over. It's not something you want to talk about first thing, either."

Dean nodded slowly, shooting his brother a reassuring smile as the two locked eyes again. "Well, it's worth a shot. It can't hurt, right?"

* * *

><p>The drive on the way to Jaime Karnes' house was silent underneath the sounds of <em>Zeppelin II<em>. As "Heartbreaker" played quietly over the road noise that broke up the inverted quiet, Dean stared out at the street leading them toward Hampden, watching as the faded lines on the two-lane blacktop passed beneath the tires.

It wasn't unusual for neither Sam nor Dean to feel particularly chatty, especially after having just finished up a case the night before and now taking another. The two were tired and sore from having to fight against Emily Munroe's invisible tethers, chase her below deck on her expansive yacht, and swim their way back toward shore after being bucked overboard. They both hadn't slept well, either, with Dean only grabbing a few hours after watching a handful of reruns on television, and Sam having tossed and turned in his sleep during the evenings prior.

However, Dean knew the lack of conversation couldn't solely be attributed to exhaustion. Neither brother was wholly focused on the case at hand, and both of them knew it. While Dean knew Sam would rather be following up on Dad's weird behavior, not that Dean could blame his brother after what had gone down at the motel, their father had given them a job to do, and they only had the option of taking it. Ignoring people dying in town to track John Winchester through his daily motions was selfish and not something Dean could willfully allow—and, it seemed, neither could Sam.

As he directed the Impala past a convenience store on the corner, Dean glanced at his brother out of the corner of his eye just as the car made its way down a residential street. Sam's eyes were staring out at the houses as they passed, taking in the split-second view of the monotonous white Colonial homes that sat on both sides of the street. The emerald green scanned over each building's façade as they gleamed against the windshield, turning slightly as the structure was left behind. Something in that gaze was distant, reminding Dean of the expression he had often seen on his brother's face once he had began proposing the idea that he return to Stanford instead of continuing on the hunt. However, this seemed different, as if Sam was simply pondering options rather than wanting to act on them. Truthfully, it looked as though something had changed.

If Dean was honest with himself, he would attribute the difference in his brother's attitude to the fire the night before. In the past, Sam would have been the first to drop the case rather than stick by it, choosing to ignore Dad's orders for what Sam thought was right. But it seemed the flames licking the walls, threatening to engulf not only Sam but his older brother, had sparked something in him that caused Sam to act more protective of Dean, as if he had suddenly become the eldest. Though Sam had always been one to throw himself in front of a bullet if it meant saving someone else, it had always been Dean who would take the heat for Sam, not the other way around. He had noticed it earlier, when they had a feeling someone or something was inside their motel room, when Sam had edged himself in front of Dean in order to be the one in the first line of fire, and he was noticing it now as he watched Sam stick with the job instead of leave his brother high and dry to follow behind their father.

However, Dean couldn't help feeling as though the difference was foreboding, as though something terrible was threatening to pop up in front of them that it took both brothers to take down. He had felt it before, during the silence in cases over the past month, but had shrugged it off. Now that Dad was there, looking as horribly run-down as he did, Dean had begun to think differently. Maybe there _was_ a reason behind the stillness, something they had missed while searching for a job to work.

Pushing the thought away, Dean pulled into the driveway of the Karnes residence. The house was exactly like all the others on the stretch of street, though a little cleaner, looking as if the clapboard siding had been painted recently. Pushing the door open, Dean waited for his brother to appear on the other side, his mop of hair blowing in the chilly wind that whipped around them. Sticking his hands in his pocket, the two nodded before rounding the grill of the car and heading for the front porch, with Dean silently hoping it wouldn't take long for anyone to let them inside.

"So, what's our cover?" Dean muttered as they neared the steps leading to the door, realizing that they hadn't established that on the drive in. In fact, his brother hadn't really given him a hint of anything, even whether or not he had called the girl ahead of time.

"Newspaper," Sam said finally, rolling his eyes at Dean's surprised look. "What?"

"I thought you said every paper around did a story on this."

Rolling his eyes again, Sam pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and glared pointedly at Dean. "They did. But I _also_ said it looks like only one of them actually _talked_ to her. I figured we could ask her a few questions and tell her it's for a follow-up story. I doubt she'll be looking for it in the morning."

Furrowing his brow, Dean ignored the blatant irritation. "What makes you say that?"

Instead of answering, Sam reached forward to press the doorbell with his covered hands, pulling his arms tighter toward himself to shield his thin body against the cold. Dropping the subject for now, especially if Sam was going to snap at him for forgetting a few meaningless facts, Dean instead looked up at the sky and around. The clouds were still dark and heavy with precipitation, the air biting at their skin. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought winter had snuck up on them without either of them knowing.

Fortunately, the sound of muffled feet came from the other side of the door, turning Dean's attention elsewhere just as the expanse of white before them opened up. In the darkened gap stood the limber body of a tall blonde with deep blue eyes rimmed in red. Her lean frame was wrapped with a matted green robe that looked like it had seen better days, and her hair was lying untamed around her shoulders, caught in the terrycloth's collar. Her nose was also red, and as she stood there, her eyes scanning the brothers searchingly, she reached a hand absently upward to rub the tip for what Dean was sure to be the thousandth time.

"Who are you?"

"Are you Jaime Karnes?" Sam asked with a small smile, his tone quiet and reassuring as opposed to Jaime's cracked, tense pitch. "I'm Sam Benson and this is Dean Hedges. We're from the _Portland Press Herald_. We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions for a story we're writing on Tyler Durden."

Returning Sam's grin half-heartedly, Jaime stared at the brothers a minute before stepping aside to let them pass. As the two entered the foyer of the boxy home, Dean noticed that the blinds were shut and the house was silent, as if Jaime had been sitting in the dark in the moments leading up to their arrival. Glimpsing into the living room off to the right, the TV was visible, its screen darkened and couch untouched. To the left was a den that held an oversized desk and an office chair, a laptop sitting closed on top of a stack of thick books.

"Are you home alone?" Dean asked suddenly, his eyes falling back on Jaime as she shut the front door behind her and leaned against it.

Nodding Jaime let out a slow breath. "My dad went to the store to pick up some supplies. We ran out of milk a few days ago and I guess he thought _today_ would be a good day to fix that problem."

Smirking despite the hardened look on Jamie's face, Dean glanced at his shoes for a minute to subdue the smile. Turning his attention to Sam, he waited for his brother to take the floor, watching as he removed a small, palm-sized notebook from the inside of his sweatshirt pocket. Flipping it open, he poised a pen over the lined paper, looking expectantly at Jaime in his best impersonation of a reporter. Again, Dean was tempted to smirk at the expression on his brother's face, but this time held it back.

"You had questions?" Jaime asked, noticing Sam's motions.

"Yes," Dean answered after a long moment of Sam staring at Jaime, a confused look on his face.

"Did you go to Stanford?" Sam asked suddenly, causing Dean to gaze up at him. Of all the things he had expected to escape his brother's mouth, _that_ hadn't been one of them. It seemed as though Jaime shared Dean's sentiment, furrowing her eyebrows together and appearing slightly blind-sided by the question. As if to clear up the confusion, Sam cleared his throat. "I mean, it's just that you look really familiar."

"Yeah, I did," Jaime nodded slowly. "I graduated last semester."

Picking up on her obvious hesitance to discuss the subject, Sam glanced down at the notepad in his hand, sending a furtive glance to Dean out of the corner of his eye. Shifting his weight, Dean pursed his lips and looked at Jaime.

"What happened, exactly, down at the park?"

Taking a deep breath, Jaime rolled her head back and peered up at the ceiling for a moment. Dean could tell that the event was still fresh in her mind, only happening a handful of hours beforehand, and that asking about it was doing nothing to alleviate the emotions Tyler Durden's death had caused. However, he and Sam needed to know in order to prevent the ordeal from happening to anyone else, meaning that they were going to have to wait for Jaime to divulge the story.

Thankfully, after what felt like an eternity, Jaime relaxed her shoulders and turned to Dean, exhaling through her nose as if doing so would hold back the tears that were threatening to form in her exhausted, watery eyes.

"We were running through the park," she began slowly, "running just like we do every day. It was just a stupid little thing we decided to do when we first dated. I was on the track team in college and he wasn't much more than ninety-eight pounds of nothing when we met, so I thought it would be a good thing for both of us." She stopped a moment to swallow hard. "We always ran to the same point, this statue that stands out over the ocean. Whoever got there first got the bragging rights. Most days, I would win, but this morning, he got there before me. I guess he had a little extra energy or something."

Stopping a moment to let out another deep breath, Jaime rubbed the back of her neck and glanced at the ground before looking up again. "Every morning, we stand there and cool off. Maine's always been windy and cold, but this morning it was… _colder_. We could see our breath in the breeze. Part of me wanted to leave and get back to the car to warm up, but before I could say anything, Tyler had spotted something in the trees."

"Did you see what it was?" Dean interrupted, noticing that Sam was scribbling notes quickly into the pad in his palm.

"I didn't see anything," Jaime frowned. "Whatever it was, it was enough to get him to leave me. Tyler's never been really outgoing or extroverted, so for him to head off was new. I guess whatever was there was interesting to him." Clearing her throat, she wiped away the trickle of tears that fell from her swelling eyes. "I wanted him to come back because I was getting cold, so I called for him. I guess he didn't hear me over all the wind. It was like everything picked up once he stepped into the trees. He heard me the second time, though. Right before he, um…"

"Was attacked?" Sam supplied.

Nodding gratefully, Jaime turned her eyes back to Dean. "This thing, this _person_, just appeared out of nowhere like a flickering light bulb and hit him straight across the face. Whoever it was was strong enough to knock him all the way into the woods. I was concerned so I followed. What I saw was… weird, to say the least."

Bunching his jaw, Dean asked. "What'd you see?"

"This guy, his face all cut up, holding a knife, or scalpel or something, over Tyler like his next move was to do the same to my boyfriend," Jaime answered, wiping away the heavy tears that were now flowing steadily. "I didn't see much after that. Tyler told me to get help. I wish I hadn't. Maybe if I had stayed…"

Silence fell while Dean glanced up at Sam. On his brother's face was an expression of knowing. Offering Jaime a small smile as she looked at him, Sam slumped his shoulders slightly. "You're lucky you got out of there when you did."

Furrowing his brow in surprise, Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam dubiously before turning back to Jaime. "You didn't recognize the guy? It wasn't anyone you knew?"

"No," Jaime answered with a shake of her head. "Nobody that I knew."

"Can you think of anybody who would want to hurt Tyler? Or you, for that matter?"

Biting her lip, Jaime shook her head again before rubbing her cheeks against the collar of her robe. As she cried silently, Dean frowned up at Sam while his brother locked eyes with the girl. "We're sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," Jaime swallowed. "I-Is that it? I mean, I don't—"

"Yeah, I think so," Dean nodded gently after she trailed off, shooting Jaime a grim smile. "We'll get out of your hair now."

Nodding absently, Jaime moved out of the way to free the threshold, holding onto the side of the door for support as she pulled it open. As Sam and Dean made their way out, she waited a moment for the two to pass before shutting herself off from the rest of the world. Frowning, Dean paused to think of the poor girl sitting alone in the dark and glanced at Sam, wondering if this would be how he took Jessica's death had he been left by himself the day after the fact. Remembering that Sam _had_ acted that way, shutting off all the lights and closing all the curtains after the two of them searched the blackened remains of Sam's former apartment, Dean's heart dropped in his chest.

_No one should have to go through that alone_.

Pushing the thought away, he reached for the handle on the Impala and slipped behind the wheel, waiting a moment for his brother to do the same. When they were safely inside, he started the engine, feeling the pensive quiet swelling once again as the two sat staring straight ahead with the end of "Bring it on Home" providing a murmuring soundtrack.

Fortunately, the silence didn't last long, breaking as Sam flipped pages in his notebook then opened his mouth to speak.

"It sounds like a spirit," Sam said softly, causing Dean to turn off the music that had started with the car. "The way she describes the appearing out of nowhere and his strength, it sounds like the guy's been long-dead."

"Yeah, but what started up his vengeance routine?" Dean asked after a moment, pausing to back out of the driveway and direct them back toward Bayview. "I mean, spirits don't just pop up randomly to start unleashing fury. Something had to have triggered it."

"I don't know," Sam admitted, frowning.

Stillness fell again, this time without the tinny tunes to interrupt the occasional sighing and guttural road noise. There was something Dean wanted to ask, but wasn't sure of, especially since it was a subject that had been silently marked out-of-bounds. However, curiosity was getting the best of Dean, causing him to blurt of the words sharply.

"And what was with the whole Stanford bit? You seen her before?"

Slumping in his seat, Sam let his knees hit the dashboard before replying, looking as though he were a six-year-old caught in a lie and trying to ease his way out of it. "I think she was in my English class."

Pursing his lips, Dean shot a glance at his brother out of the corner of his eye, debating whether or not to say more. After a long moment, he bit it back and directed his attention onto the faded road, making a turn past the gas station he had passed on his way into Hampden. It wasn't often that Sam talked about his time away at college, mainly because he knew Dean often became irritated with the subject and the conversation seemed to stir up painful memories for both brothers, but Dean couldn't help but wonder if there was something more to the fact that somehow, in Maine of all places, Sam had run into someone he had gone to school with all the way out in California. Honestly, the chance meeting reminded him of what his brother had told him about running into Meg at the side of the road, then again at some bar in Chicago.

_Of course, that bitch turned out to be a demon_, Dean reminded himself.

Rolling his shoulders back, Dean relaxed into the seat and tried to quell the questions bubbling in his mind about whether or not they could trust Jaime's story. If she turned out to be anything like Meg, they could be leading themselves into a situation similar to the one that had put them on lockdown in the first place. Of course, if that were to be the problem, that would explain Dad's haggard appearance.

However, Dean had a feeling that wasn't the case. Jaime attending Stanford was probably nothing but a coincidence. The school was big enough to house more students than just Sam, and it was likely that at least some of them had traveled from the east coast to attend the precocious university. All this girl was was an innocent bystander, nothing more.

Shaking his head free of the idea, Dean reached forward to switch the tape over to side two, turning up the volume to let the music swallow the thoughtful silence.


	5. Three

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

THREE

Bayview Public Library  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Thursday, August 3, 2006  
>5:47 PM<p>

**D**uring the last hunt, Dean had sworn two things to himself: One, that he wouldn't be putting on one of those stupid monkey suits for whatever was next thrown their way; and two, that they were staying as far away as possible from any type of library—no matter what. However, it seemed as though Sam was intent on breaking Dean's inward promise.

On the drive back from Jaime Karnes' house, Sam had been in his own world again, staring out the window as if something fascinating was passing by the glass. After a long moment of silence, which had only been broken by the music Dean was playing and the hum of the Impala's engine, Sam had finally opened his mouth as soon as they reached Bayview city limits. Unfortunately, what he said caused Dean to wish his brother had remained mute.

"We need to go to a library. See if anything's been written about any kind of murder in the park," Sam had said, not bothering to turn his attention toward Dean. "I doubt we'll be able to dig up much online."

Groaning to himself, Dean tried to refrain from arguing against his brother's suggestion, instead keeping in mind the fact that Sam was actually _working_ the job with him rather than breaking off on his own to follow Dad. The thought alone was enough to hold back Dean's tongue, but the idea of stepping foot inside another library was making that feat harder than he initially imagined.

Following his brother inside, the two had immediately set up shop in an out-of-the-way corner just like they had every other time, a spot that allowed Dean to see and hear all, before Sam left to talk with one of the librarians clustered behind the front desk. To the place's credit, they didn't stock the shelves, so to speak, with the gray-haired grandmas Dean was used to seeing in establishments like this. Rather, a voluptuous blonde college girl dressed in a University of Maine t-shirt stood beside a leggy brunette, both sorting through thick volumes that sat on metal carts. While Sam talked to the older, but still as attractive, brunette beside them, Dean kept his eyes trained on the girls, watching as they passed books between them, laughing quietly at some unheard joke.

By the time Sam returned, Dean had almost forgotten that he was somewhere he wished he weren't before his brother reminded him of it by throwing a stack of old ledgers down on the feeble table situated between them. Rolling his eyes, Dean reached forward to pick up one of the thickly-bound tomes, brushing dust off the cover to read the handwritten title taped down with aged adhesive. Coughing twice as the fumes met the back of his throat, he shot his younger brother a glare.

"What's this?"

"A journal," Sam sighed, grabbing one of his own and flipping it open, "of everything that happened during the construction of the park. If anything weird and spirit-inducing went down during the time it was being built, it would be in here somewhere."

"And it took all of _this_," Dean said pointedly, nodding toward the five or six books laid out in front of them, "for them to write down anything interesting?"

"Looks like."

"Great."

Smirking, Sam turned back the first page of the ledger and began reading. Waiting a moment to watch his brother's eyes skim the book with the absorption of a sponge, Dean pursed his lips before doing the same. On the first few yellowed sheets were indiscernible numbers that looked like an accounting log, and the pages following were nothing but small anecdotes about things found in the ground while the landscaping crew was laying sod. The handwriting was a tight scrawl that's gibberish would match the contents of Dad's book—though the one in front of him contained less about separate species of demons and more about the different variations of dirt.

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Dean looked up in silent wonder over whether or not his brother was serious about reading this boring piece of micro-journalism. There couldn't possibly be anything there that wouldn't be mentioned in the local newspaper at the time; unless of course Sam was looking for something innocuous and inconspicuous by normal standards, though Dean couldn't imagine what that could be. When he saw that Sam was still staring intently at the pages as he sifted through them, Dean let out a silent sigh before reemerging himself in the barely-legible writing on the faded lines.

_March 15, 1956 - Found discarded fire sprinkler in soil today. Mark Willis made a joke that it was planted there by Smokey the Bear._

_March 16, 1956 - Dug space for walkway. Cement should be installed by tomorrow. Cost ~$165._

_March 17, 1956 - Jeff Thomas approved of the concrete installation. Crew went home early in honor of St. Patrick's._

Looking up, Dean glanced across the way at the girls behind the front desk. Through there was only one of them now, the blonde, she was more entertaining to watch than whatever was written in the book glaring up at him from the table. Unfortunately, Dean knew that his brother would notice his distraction and begin to become insistent that he work, which might lead to Sam bailing on him for bigger fish, causing Dean to roll his shoulders back and return his eyes to the scribbled words.

Thankfully, it wasn't much longer after he turned to the next page that Sam slammed his own book shut and leaned forward. Though he could tell by the way his brother's shoulders were slumped that he hadn't gotten much more than Dean had, it seemed as though something inside the ledger had sparked an idea in Sam. Getting up from his chair without another word, Sam crossed the room to speak to one of the women Dean had been watching. The older brunette was back, leaning over a cardboard box sitting on top of the desk and displaying her impressive rack. Admiring it for a moment, Dean watched as she pushed the file crate toward his brother with a large smile.

"I thought this might be more up your alley," he heard her say. "I dug it out of the back when I heard you were looking into the park. It's not much, but it should be enough for your article."

Smiling shyly, Sam nodded in thanks before returning to their table, dropping the box at their feet and kneeling down.

"What's that?" Dean asked.

"I'm not sure."

Lifting the lid, Sam looked inside before moving to give Dean a view of the contents. Sitting at the bottom were stacks of newspapers, various hardcover books, pamphlets on local establishments and recreation areas, wilderness guides, and so on, each organized by type in neat piles that ran up the sides of the crate. Reaching down, Dean removed one of the novels, flipping it over to read the title aloud to his younger brother, raising an eyebrow as he did.

"_Murder in Maine: from Stephen King to Serial Killers_," Dean smirked. "Wonder what made her give you this."

"I gave her the same cover story we gave Jaime; that we're working on a follow-up about the Tyler Durden murder," Sam answered with a shrug. "Guess she figured we could use it for whatever we're writing."

"Probably thought you were the next Mike Noonan with all of this."

Grinning, Sam hefted the box onto the table, reaching inside to remove the faded newspapers that were folded at the bottom. Sitting back in his chair, this time with the crate between them to block each other from view, Dean could hear his brother unfurling the crinkling pages.

In the back of his mind, Dean knew they didn't have enough information to go on when it came to figuring out what was happening, even without the added box of intel. One attack hardly pointed to a pattern, and without a complete description of the ghostly slasher, they didn't have much that would lead them to the culprit. However, they were working. After a month of nothing following two cases and nearly two months before that of laying low in a motel room on the outskirts of Fort Wayne, anything they could get was worth looking into—not to mention the fact that Dad had personally delivered the hunt to them, despite Dean having a feeling he had done so to keep his sons distracted.

Unfortunately, he knew they had two options when it came to the job: search until they found even the smallest speck of something, or wait for someone else to be carved up in the park. While he knew the latter wasn't something to consider, Dean couldn't help but think that at least then they could begin to figure out some sort of tendency. With just one attack and one unclear depiction, all they knew was that they were looking for some sort of ghost with some kind of trigger related to the park. Ultimately, though, that narrowed the playing field down to looking for a needle in a stack of needles.

Across the way, Dean heard Sam sigh in irritation. He knew his brother was just as frustrated with the job, especially since he had other things on his mind—first and foremost being Dad. Fortunately for both of them, though, Sam was keeping a level head about it so far, seemingly ignoring what was most likely eating at the back of his brain to figure out what was going on with the case. Part of Dean wanted to comfort his brother and tell him that they could figure out what was up with their father after they were done, while another part of him knew that would be a lie. Though he was intrigued when it came to his father's hunts and secrets, it wasn't enough to get him to break the honor code—though the more he thought about it, the more he was tempted. Thankfully, it seemed as if Sam had already recognized that fact and was intent on keeping the peace until he absolutely had to break it up… whenever that would be.

Suddenly, the box partitioning the brothers off from one another was moved aside just as Sam got to his feet. Stuffing the refolded paper back inside, he shot a weary look at his brother before reaching for the book Dean had removed earlier. Glancing around, Sam shoved the small volume into the waistband of his jeans, then replaced the cardboard lid.

"We through here?" Dean asked hopefully, also standing up.

"Yeah, there's not much else here," Sam answered with a frown. "I might be able to find something online now that I have a possible starting point, maybe something that has to do with this Ronald Mercer guy."

Furrowing his brows, Dean pulled at his earlobe. "Who?"

"I'll explain later."

Nodding in response, Dean followed behind his brother as he headed toward the check-out desk, returning the box with a small smile before leading the way out of the library. Once they were back in the parking lot, Sam leaned against the roof of the Impala, pulling out the _Murder in Maine _book to make sure he hadn't damaged it after stuffing it behind him to steal from inside.

"I don't know if I want to ask what you need that for," Dean commented with a grin.

"The article Dad gave us earlier mentioned a man named Ronald Mercer," Sam explained, opening the door to the passenger's side and slipping in, only continuing once Dean had taken his place behind the wheel. "It might be nothing, but the guy might be connected to this thing somehow. The papers said Bayview hadn't been mentioned in the major trades except for once before, when that guy was at large."

"So what is he? Some kind of serial killer?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Sam bit his lip. "The papers I was reading inside were from August of 1978. They said that the man was caught after fifteen murders. Apparently the police had put it together after the man had slashed himself up to make it look like he was one of the victims. And get this, the cuts on his face were something called a Chelsea Smile."

"Am I supposed to know what that is?" Dean asked, cranking the engine.

"No, I guess not," Sam frowned. "The Chelsea Smile was something street gangs in Chelsea, London used as an intimidation tactic. They cut their victim's faces from the corners of the mouth to the apples of their cheeks before kicking them in the stomach to widen the wound. When it healed, it left a permanent scar like a smile. It's been used in previous murder cases in the States, like the Black Dahlia and a few others."

"Man, you sure know a lot of weird-o stuff," Dean grinned slightly, pointing them back toward their motel. "So what're you thinking? That this Ronald Mercer guy might be the one behind the attacks? Might be our spirit?"

"Might be," Sam agreed. "The only way to know is to dig up info on the guy."

Nodding, Dean turned his attention onto the road, silently wondering if maybe they had a simple open-and-shut case on their hands for once—though that was far from likely.


	6. Four

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

FOUR

Bayview Lodge  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Thursday, August 3, 2006  
>7:18 PM<p>

**S**am let out a deep breath as he massaged his temples, looking down at the keyboard in front of him as he did so. A headache had been forming there for the greater part of an hour, only a little after he and Dean had come back from the library, and staring at the bright computer screen for just as long wasn't helping any.

Ever since returning to their motel room, Sam had been clicking feverishly away at websites, online journals, and databases he had hacked into, looking for anything he could on Ronald Mercer. In that time, Dean had been reading through Dad's journal, looking for anything he could on the man or the park the first victim had died at. When that turned up fruitless, Sam watched out of the corner of his eye as his brother paced the room before finally announcing he was going out to get them dinner.

As soon as Dean had shut the door behind him, an unwelcome silence had clouded the room, one that allowed Sam's mind to shift from the case he was working over to his father and what he could be doing now. Ever since watching Dad walk out the door, Sam had been curious, lost in his own thoughts about the millions of possibilities behind John Winchester's emaciated appearance and reason behind handing his sons a job. However, nothing he came up with seemed plausible, causing Sam to berate himself for not being able to think of the right answer, and instead turning his thoughts elsewhere.

While a website loaded in a new tab, Sam waited absently, barely seeing the monitor in his blurred vision as he stared beyond it at the wallpaper covering the room. The color wasn't as violent red as he had first thought, though the brightness of it was still distracting regardless of how toned-down it now appeared. The rest of the furniture inside was the same unfinished wood grain as every other motel he and Dean had stayed in, with the exception that it seemed everything still functioned as it should. Even the TV, which was on but muted, was working properly, flickering every now and again whenever the reception on the rabbit ears faded. The screen displayed whatever Dean had been watching before leaving, some movie involving Clint Eastwood chasing a guy on a motorcycle.

Out of his peripheral vision, Sam's gaze moved as he could see that the page he had been waiting for had loaded, refreshing whatever images it hadn't been able to display the first time around. Turning his attention to it, he saw that most of the site contained password-protected material, with a government-issued login prompt sitting in the corner. He had been staring at the page belonging to the county coroner's office for the past ten minutes, tapping his fingers impatiently as he waited for it to pop up. In the meantime, Sam silently reminded himself to tell Dean that they need to buy a new computer whenever Dean next won a poker game, especially if they were going to spend time trying to hack into various, highly-guarded websites. Those pages were often thick with security that took time to bypass, and spending most of that time waiting for the site to load was more counterproductive than anything else.

Thankfully, Sam had learned a few ways around having to go through firewall after firewall and password after password from a friend at Stanford. As soon as he found the login box located in the top right corner, he immediately set to work putting that knowledge to good use, hopefully cutting his wait time for illicit information in half.

So far, Sam knew the basics about Ronald Mercer—where he had lived, where he had died, and so on—but hadn't learned much about the previous night's victim. After discovering that Mercer had been gunned down in the exact place Tyler Durden had been murdered, after the police had tried to talk the man into putting down the knife he was using to carve up his prey, Sam had become interested in the reason behind the way the spirit was choosing its victims and why it had suddenly started again. Hopefully, something on Tyler Durden's corpse would point to some kind of explanation.

As he typed in variations of possible passcodes and memorized defaults, Sam let his mind reiterate the facts he had learned on Mercer. At first, he hadn't been sold on what he had told his brother outside the library, that the man was the one behind the attacks, but was slowly becoming more adamant about the idea the more he discovered about the guy. It appeared Ronald Mercer had grown up in Bayview, but hadn't spent much time in town. According to various stories, one coming from the _Murder in Maine_ book, Mercer had been kicked out of every school in the three cities surrounding the area, finally finding one in Brewer that took him in for good—one that tended to the needs of "special cases". Intrigued, Sam had discovered that Ronald had been diagnosed with almost every type of schizophrenia known to man, and had been placed on as many drugs as humanly possible.

After awhile, however, Ronald's body began to adapt to the medication, rendering it somewhat useless. Becoming addicted to it, the man had been placed in rehab before being committed to an asylum in Portland, where he had stayed until he mysteriously disappeared one night in 1978. The day after he was reported missing, a corpse had been found carved up ten miles away in Back Cove Park. Not seeing the two as coincidence, especially since Ronald had been kicked out of school so many times for threatening to do the same to his classmates, the police had immediately set out an APB on the guy. Unfortunately for them, they hadn't found him until fifteen bodies had been dropped between Portland and Bayview.

Ultimately, though, no matter how many times Sam reviewed the story, none of it sounded like something that would render an angry spirit coming back for revenge. In fact, nothing about anything that happened in the park in the past fifty years since its construction sounded like something that would cause a ghost to start slaying patrons—well, except for the shooting, but even that could be considered humane compared to some of the things Sam had dug up on other angry spirits.

Finally, the site refreshed to replace the login page with a new layout, this one with links long the side leading to other parts of the Penobscot County sheriff's network. As Sam's eyes passed over the various titles, he finally found the one listing the pathology department and clicked on it. To the right, a menu appeared, one displaying names written with numbers beside it. Selecting _Durden, T - 08.03.06_, Sam waited for the site to refresh again, rolling his eyes in impatience, before taking in the image in front of him.

On the screen was a written-in coroner's report scanned into the site, complete with the colored drawing of a human body filled with markings from the murder. On the sketch's face were red lines depicting the cuts etched in Tyler's cheeks and blue where the bruises had formed. To the side of the drawing was a write-up of the injuries, along with an estimated time of death of five-thirty in the morning.

"_Lacerations on face approximately twelve centimeters long and two centimeters wide_," Sam read. "_Contusions are consistent with reported beating. Parietal lobe hemorrhaging and cranial fractures noted. Numerous bone fragments from fractures have penetrated brain tissue._"

Biting his lip, Sam continued to read the report, finally landing on the notes section:

"_Benzole found in facial wounds_."

Frowning just as the door to the motel swung wide to reveal Dean holding a heavy sack of food, Sam let out a deep breath and clicked open a new browser window. As Dean entered the room, the smell of onions following in his wake, Sam began to search for odd phenomenon involving the chemical, ignoring his brother as Dean shot him a concerned glare from where he now sat in front of the television.

After a long moment, Sam scoffed at the screen, shutting down his computer as he got up to retrieve a burger from his brother, the smell of them seeming more intense than before. Sitting down across from Dean, Sam grinned to himself prior to peeling back the wrapper and taking a bite, noticing his brother's curiously-raised eyebrow.

"What?" Sam asked, swallowing.

"You just look like you hit the jackpot is all," Dean shrugged. "Care to share or are you just going to keep all that to yourself?"

Scratching the back of his neck with his free hand, Sam nodded before taking another bite, not realizing until now how hungry he had been. The last time he had eaten had been before the fire, and it seemed he had forgotten to do so in lieu of digging up information on the case. Either that or it had simply slipped his mind after the run-in with Dad and his new partner outside of the police station.

Shaking his head free of the thought, Sam cleared his throat. "I think I figured out what's going on."

Smiling, Dean straightened up and took another bite of his burger, not bothering to finish eating before opening his mouth to speak. "Thatta boy! What'd you find out?"

"Well," Sam sighed, taking a deep breath. "Looks like Ronald Mercer was diagnosed with schizophrenia and on all kinds of drugs, from Thorazine to Stelazine. After awhile, the dude was placed in an asylum in Portland before he broke out. After that, the murders started the next day." Sam paused, recounting what he had read to make sure he didn't skip anything. "The cops couldn't stop him because they couldn't find him. It looks like he kept moving north until he got to Bayview. According to a handful of websites, the guy was shot and killed after they chased him down."

"Crack police work," Dean commented, rolling his eyes. "Why'd they kill him?"

"I guess they didn't really know what to do with him," Sam shrugged. "Apparently they had ordered him to put down the knife in his hand, but he didn't do it and kept talking to someone who wasn't there. Plus, schizophrenia wasn't really talked about back in 1978. The cops probably didn't know what was wrong with him."

"Just the voices in his head telling him what to do," Dean frowned. "So what makes you so sure it was this guy? You see some neon sign?"

"The markings on the face for one. There aren't any other reports of anyone being killed that way. And two, Mercer was killed in Bayview Memorial Park." Sam paused a minute to take another bite of his burger and soak in Dean's surprised expression. When it faded, Sam concluded, "I mean, based on everything we've seen, spirits usually haunt a place they have a connection to, which usually means the place they died."

"Yeah, I know," Dean nodded.

As the two continued eating, Sam let the silence grow over the room while both he and Dean sat in thought. It looked like all the brothers had to do was take care of the body and they would be free of their obligation to Dad and his case. Maybe then they could focus elsewhere, possibly on finding out what the man was up to and who he was with.

However, that was a thought for later. They still had an obstacle to overcome, and a few things to take care of before they could start tailing their father—and that was assuming Dean would be interested in doing so. So far, Dean didn't seem to want to abandon what he and Dad called "the honor code", the unspoken rule that John Winchester's sons didn't do anything underhanded when it came to their father. It was a rule that Sam had broken the night he decided to abandon the commanded job in Burkittsville to track down where Dad had called from in Sacramento, one that he seemed to have more respect for after nearly getting Dean killed by a reanimated scarecrow.

"There's one more thing," Sam said after a long minute, trying to kick away the memory of being chased down by not only the Pagan god that had been killing people but the townies that had been doing its bidding. "There was something found on Tyler Durden's body. A chemical. It might be nothing, but it's definitely interesting."

"A chemical?" Dean grinned. "What, like skin-eating acid?"

"No," Sam smirked. "It's something called benzole, typically found in tar, coal, and other normal stuff."

Frowning, Dean let sarcasm drip in his tone. "Yeah, that's _real_ interesting, Sam."

Rolling his eyes, Sam cleared his throat. "Benzole is also found in one other, one very not-_normal_ thing: ectoplasm. And that stuff just leaks out of pissed-off spirits if they're mad enough."

"Depends on your definition of the word mad," Dean smirked, shaking his head before finishing the last of his burger and standing up to shrug on the jacket he had abandoned only minutes ago. Doing the same, Sam got to his feet and reached for the directions to the cemetery Ronald Mercer had been buried in, folding them into a small square to fit into his pants pocket.

As he pulled on his sweatshirt, he noticed that a look had appeared on his brother's face as he watched him, one that seemed burdened with something. Frowning, Sam eyed him for a moment, silently wondering what could be bothering Dean. It was possible that his brother had come to the same conclusion about the case as he had—that they were coming to a close and that they would soon be able to follow Dad without other obligations—but that didn't seem likely. If Dean didn't want to accompany Sam in the task of tailing their father, he would openly say so. Dean wasn't one to say quiet about something so important.

This was something else, something Sam couldn't put his finger on.

Clearing his throat, Dean pulled at his earlobe before glancing up, the expression now gone and replaced with the usual anticipation held there before the climax of a hunt. It was a mesh of excitement and anxiety, both for the thrill of putting the ghost in the ground for good and the expectation that things might go awry. Sam was experiencing the sensation as well, though dulled a bit by the idea that he could feel his thoughts wondering toward the Bayview Super 8 across town.

Running his fingers through his hair, Sam shook his head to let his bangs fall in his face again before turning toward the door and heading out.


	7. Five

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

FIVE

Restfield Cemetery  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Thursday, August 3, 2006  
>9:12 PM<p>

**I**t was pouring rain by the time Dean pulled the Impala up to the closed gates of Restfield Cemetery. Large drops were hitting the windshield at a rapid pace, making it impossible to see, even with the wipers going as fast as they could across the foggy glass. Inside the car, the heater was on, warming the biting cold that was wafting its way in through the thin cracks in the doors and windows.

Dean had known it was going to rain, but not like this. He had seen the clouds churning overhead earlier in the day, and had even experienced a few stay sprinkles in the drive back from the fast food joint he had just been at, but hadn't expected the showers to be as heavy as they were. Through the dense curtain of water, he could barely make out past the headlights, seeing only the large, imposing iron arch that towered over them like a dark shadow, covering the start of the driveway like a solid door. Beyond that, everything was black, giving Dean an ominous feeling and causing a shiver to run down his spine.

In the passenger's seat, Sam was staring out at the rain as well, pulling his thin sweatshirt tighter as though wishing it were warmer. As the two of them sat in the idling car, they were both silent, most likely debating who would be the one to get out and swing the gates wide enough for the broad Impala to pass through.

"Rock, paper, scissors?" Dean asked, heading off the unspoken argument.

Shaking his head, Sam reached for the door handle. "Nah. We're both going to get soaked anyway. What's the point?"

As Sam hopped out of the car, Dean watched while his brother jogged in front of the headlights gleaming on the muted metal and gave the doors a hard shove. The entrance separated easily, a shrill whine sounding over the pounding of the rain against the hood of the Impala. Racing back to the warmth of inside, Sam fell into the passenger's seat before Dean eased the car up the sloping pathway, his brother shaking out his long hair like a wet dog and flicking water all over Dean and the leather interior.

"Sam," Dean groaned, "I don't need a shower, okay?"

"You're about to get one," Sam commented flatly, keeping his eyes on the sheets of water falling from above as the pace picked up to a level comparable to a tropical storm.

By the time Dean pulled the car into a circular lot devoid of stalls, the rain had become a waterfall, automatically drenching them as soon as the brothers stepped out in it. Rounding to the trunk, Dean popped up the false bottom to grab the essentials—salt, lighter fluid, collapsible shovels, and a few Zippos, in case the first got lost—before stuffing them into a threadbare duffle sitting deeper inside. When he was done, he tossed the bag to Sam, who then threw the thing over his shoulder to carry.

Rubbing water out of his eyes, Dean grabbed a pair of sawed-off shotguns and made sure they were full of ghost repellant before shutting the trunk. As the old metals of the car collided with one another, the sound could barely be heard over the roar of the rain, causing Dean to wonder if it was wise that they were doing this now. The last time they had worked a case involving water, Dean had suffered a heart attack—although last time they had been using taser guns instead of ones containing salt rounds.

However, they had to get this thing before it got anyone else, and if that meant dealing with trying to kindle a fire in stormy weather, then so be it.

Nodding, Dean began the trek inward, glancing back at Sam every few seconds to make sure his brother was following behind. As he stepped onto the grass, the feel of soaked earth surrounded his boots, causing his heels to sink into the ground with every step. Pausing a moment, Dean waited for Sam to catch up, noticing that his brother was reading the nearby headstones as they passed.

On the way to the cemetery, Sam had told his brother that Ronald Mercer's grave was most likely shoved in the back somewhere, hidden from view due to his psychotic infamy. Apparently, according to several websites and the book Sam had stolen, people around town didn't take too kindly to the man, even after he was shot and killed, denouncing him and sticking his coffin in a barely-marked spot concealed in a corner of the lot. However, _which_ corner of the lot was still unknown, as was how far the graveyard stretched out before them.

In the darkness, Dean could make out the dense shapes of tombstones as they came nearer, though he had missed a few of the flat markers lying in the grass, accidentally stepping on their faceplates. Had they been farther from the main road, since Restfield sat in the center of a major intersection, he would have pulled out a flashlight. However, the beam might attract unwanted attention, especially if the residents were on alert over the attack in Bayview Memorial Park, and some hysteric passerby calling the cops on them wasn't something Dean wanted to deal with at the moment.

Instead, they wove their way through the cemetery, guessing where to place their feet in the small stream light coming in from the streetlamps and businesses across the way.

By the time they reached the back corner of the cemetery, Dean steadied himself against an iron post and ran his fingers through his dripping hair, narrowing his eyes to see his brother through the thick blackness surrounding them. The rain had subsided considerably, becoming nothing more than a light trickle, and making it easier for them to hear one another as Sam stepped between headstones to read the engraving in each. After a long moment, Dean could make out his brother's shape, his shoulders slumped in disappointment.

"I don't see it," Sam's voice said, cutting through the patter of drops.

"Well, maybe it's on the other side," Dean suggested.

"Yeah, maybe."

Taking a deep breath, Dean pushed himself away from the fence and rounded to his brother, matching his pace as the two strode to the opposite side of the boneyard. While they walked, Dean helped Sam read the names written in the slabs of marble as they passed by, looking for Ronald Mercer or a date similar to the one on which he had died. Taking the next row over, Dean could see that they were somewhere in the 1950s and going up, seemingly heading in the right directions.

Suddenly, Dean saw his brother stop beside a meager headstone, one barely raised off the ground and engraved shallowly. Crossing over to him, Dean smiled before clapping Sam on the shoulder in accomplishment as he read the name on the rock:

RONALD M. MERCER  
>August 15, 1939 to August 3, 1978<br>"Man devises, but God's counsel stands"

"Wonder what that means," Dean smirked, nodding at the verse.

"Probably couldn't think of anything nice to say," Sam scoffed, removing a collapsible shovel from inside the duffle bag and handing it to Dean before taking the other for himself. "I mean, it's not like you can write 'he killed a lot of people' on a grave marker."

Laughing, Dean laid the shotguns he had been holding against a nearby tombstone and struck at the muddy earth with the point of the shovel. As soon as he tossed away the first mound of dirt, Sam joined in, pushing his mop of dripping hair out of his face before grasping the handle firmly. While the two dug in silence, Dean let the tapping of the rain against the soil soothe him.

Ever since leaving the motel room in search of a burger joint, Dean had felt tense. Before that, while Sam had been researching online all the facts they needed to proceed with the hunt, Dean had been sitting across the way, sifting through Dad's journal in an attempt to find something useful. When he discovered nothing but a dozen missing pages, his mind had begun to wonder, giving Dean the odd feeling that he needed to get out of there before he drove himself mad trying to figure out what had been ripped from the book. On the drive to the nearest Burger King, Dean had been tempted to stop by Dad's motel room to sit and wait for signs of movement inside, possibly catching a glimpse as to what the man was up to and what had him looking so fragile. However, the thought alone made him feel guilty, causing him to head in the other direction in search of food.

Unfortunately, the thought hadn't faded the farther away he got from the Bayview Super 8, instead intensifying the more he dwelled on it. As he waited for his order to finish, secretly hoping Sam wouldn't bitch at the idea of having to eat something that wasn't chick food, Dean had stared out the window at the light rain, wondering what it was that Dad had removed from the journal and why. Though he and Sam had nearly memorized the book since acquiring it, the thought of missing pages seemed to draw a blank in his mind, as though the removal of them had also resulted in a deletion in Dean's memory.

Frowning, Dean stabbed roughly at the ground and kicked away the thought, focusing on the task at hand while the rain began to pick up once again. They were nearly at the bottom of the grave, the walls they had built towering over them as they continued to dig deeper. After a long moment of silence, the sound of the tip of Sam's shovel hitting something hard rang out, causing Dean to let out a breath of relief. He hadn't realized how tired his muscles were becoming, and as he placed the tool over the side to help lift up the lid of the coffin beneath their feet, it felt as if his arms would give way if he had to do any more manual labor.

Standing at the edge of the dirt, Dean bent down to help Sam prop open the casket, using the rest of his strength to do so. When the cover was fully removed, the two peered down to see the shadow of a skeleton inside, not fully able to make out the details due to how far into the earth they were. Reaching deep into his pocket, Dean pulled out one of the many lighters he had grabbed, flicking it on to take a look.

The body appeared to be just like every other one they had seen, with spiders crawling in and out of the crevices in the skull and skittering for cover as soon as the light fell on them. The bones were covered with a paper-thin layer of leathery skin, as well as moldy clothes that had been mostly eaten by the insects that had found their way inside.

Grimacing, Dean turned and pushed himself up over the side, grabbing for the duffle bag Sam had dropped before joining his older brother in digging. Ripping it open, he removed the lighter fluid and salt to toss to Sam below, leaving the Zippo in his hand to use for the final step.

While Sam covered the remains, Dean glanced around for movement. Something about this was too easy. By now, the two of them would have been attacked and thrown aside by the spirit in an attempt to protect its body from being put to rest. So far, though, nothing had happened, not even the closer they got to lighting up the skeleton. Instead, everything was still as they worked, giving Dean the odd feeling that something wasn't quite right.

"Okay," Sam said, crawling over the side of the grave they had dug and getting to his feet, the mud that soaked his clothes shining in the moonlight breaking through the trees. For a moment, Dean wondered if he looked just as bad, knowing what the sludge would do to the Impala's leather interior. Before he could dwell on it, however, Sam's voice cut through his thoughts, causing him to tear his eyes away from the muck under their feet. "Light her up."

Nodding in response, Dean flicked the lighter and watched the small flame dance before him. After a long minute, he tossed the Zippo into the hole, smiling as the fire erupted almost instantly. While they stood there, taking in the flickering red and orange as they twined together, Dean let his mind wonder once again—this time over the case rather than worrying about how his car was going to deal with its dirty occupants.

_This was too easy_, Dean thought, sighing.

It was possible that he and Sam had, for once, encountered an open-and-shut case that didn't require any hard work, but that happened almost never. However, things with the supernatural community had been on a rise of oddities, with some of the Hunters going along with the sudden change—Dad included. It was possible that the brothers had been handed the case by their father due to the fact that John Winchester knew of its simplicity and ease, thinking that the two couldn't get in trouble dealing with something so straightforward. Unfortunately, something about that didn't sit right with Dean, either. Dad was good at his job, a master, and didn't give his son cases because they were _easy_; he gave it to them because it needed to be done. The effortlessness of it had nothing to do with it… if it was effortless at all.

"_I need it done and out of the way_," Dad had said.

But why? Was there a reason he needed a spirit put to rest? Was it because he was preoccupied elsewhere and couldn't do it himself? Or did it have something to do with the Big Picture? Dad hadn't really given them a reason, just an order, and Dean hadn't questioned it until now—now that they were possibly finished with the task they had been personally delivered.

Groaning to himself, Dean rubbed at the back of his wet hair before watching the flames subside due to the growing rain. Bending down, he picked up the damp shotguns, making a note to clean them as soon as they were back at the motel, and exchanged a nod with Sam. As he watched him, Dean could see a similar curiosity forming in his brother's eyes. It appeared as if Dean wasn't the only one who had noticed something strange, and it also appeared as though Sam was set on finding out what that strangeness was.

Sighing, Dean bit his lip, wondering just how curious his brother would get before they were back to where they had been earlier that morning. However, this time around, Dean didn't know if he would be able to restrain himself if Sam proposed another B&E. The more he thought about Dad's abnormal activities, the more interested he became in finding out what exactly their father was up to.

Kicking the thought away, Dean rested the barrels of the shotguns against his shoulder and followed behind Sam as his brother lead the way back to the car.


	8. Six

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

SIX

Bayview Memorial Park  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Friday, August 4, 2006  
>4:35 AM<p>

**T**he wind blew Jason Wright's blonde hair off of his face as he walked quickly through Bayview Memorial Park, his dog lagging behind as they tried to fight against the strong currents knocking both of them backward. It was unusual for this part of Maine to be this gusty in August, especially since this was the time of year where things got particularly balmy, but it seemed as if the small, seaside town wasn't following along with the others in the state and instead reverting back to its winter conditions.

Rubbing his nose, Jason sniffed quickly before hurrying his pace, wanting to get his morning-slash-late night walk over with as soon as possible. He had gotten off work only half an hour ago, figuring the stroll would help him fall asleep, but hadn't thought it would be so frigid out. Having worked inside of Putnam, Powell, and Lowe until the wee hours of the morning, he hadn't had to brave the cold weather, or the rain that had left the pavement in front of him dewy, even as he strolled to his car parked in the garage below the law firm. Unfortunately, it seemed this had been one of the downsides of working inside such a warm building—one of the _only _downsides.

Jason's life revolved around clients and busy schedules, meaning that he sometimes burned the midnight oil until well after four in the morning as he tried to get everything set up for the next day. The job was high-strung and thought-provoking, as well as set at his own pace and rewarding—especially when the paycheck came at the end of the week. For hours upon hours, he dealt with anything from small business squabbles to corporate infidelities; sometimes both at the same time. He had a lot on his plate and managed it well, even allowing time during his day to rub elbows with the partners at lunch.

Prior to leaving earlier, Jason had received an e-mail from one of the higher-ups alerting him of Lowe stepping down by the end of the year, meaning that it was a perfect time to submit himself forward as a representative of the job he could do. By the time four rolled around, Jason had planned out his next months in advance, laying out the cases he would be taking as proof that he could handle the title of partner. There was the espionage going on between Harper Shipping and Portland Docking, both of whom had filed a complaint about unfair business practices, that Jason was hoping to tackle with a settlement on both parts, while also managing the quarrel between the two most prominent small business owners in Bayview, who both claimed to know for a fact the other was price-fixing. It would show that he could take on anything, from tiny to tall, with ease.

That was, of course, if his "friend" Clinton Hopkins didn't jump in to take it all from him at the last minute. The guy had the knack for doing so, first with the title of MVP during their senior year football season in high school, then again for _summa cum lade _during their college graduation. After the disgrace of only being titled _magna cum lade_,as opposed to the rest of his family before him, Jason had thought he would be rid of the guy. Ultimately, Clinton had shown up not only at the same law school as Jason, but also at the same firm later on.

Though he hated the guy, Jason still tried to make friends with him, if only to find out what Clinton's next move was.

However, if he timed it correctly and pulled out all the stops, Clinton Hopkins wouldn't even be a threat to Jason taking partner. He just had to get a slight edge over the bastard and he'd be a shoe-in, and that should be easy enough.

Smiling to himself, Jason continued walking, slowing down a little despite the blast of air stinging his nose and cheeks. He didn't care anymore. In fact, he didn't even care that he was now awake due to the cold weather. If he stayed up and took care of a few phone calls when he got home, maybe asking around for tips to get ahead from his buddies at Cornwall and Stone in London, then maybe he could survive the rest of the day on coffee and adrenaline. He had a plan now. All he had to do was put it in action and he would be raking in the dough.

Passing the statue situated at the lookout point over the ocean, Jason rounded the corner and headed past the small strip of forestry that extended onto a cliff. When he was younger, he had played in the thick foliage, almost toppling over the side when he had chased his remote-control airplane too far, causing that _one_ time to be the _last_ time. Since then, he had seen kids messing around in the shrubbery when he had worked earlier hours, but none that seemed to go far enough out to meet their doom like he nearly had.

Of course, back then, children had been more reckless, testing their limits instead of staying safe near the sidewalk—or even inside their homes, shying away from daylight. Computers hadn't been as big as they were now, keeping kids glued to the monitor at all hours of the day, nestled in chairs or in bed. Back in his day, children were working toward something like life experience rather than experience points, and had goals. But that was then, and this was, unfortunately, now.

_Listen to me, thinking like an old man_, Jason smirked to himself.

At twenty-five, Jason certainly felt like an old man with the hours he worked and the way he lived, spending most of his life in his office except for when he came home to an empty house and his dog, Spunky, in the early morning. But that was the way he liked to be: career-oriented with no intention of settling down anytime soon. He had his whole life to get married. Right now was for work and getting ahead. No sense in putting it off for the rest of the American Dream, nor in worrying about that any time before thirty.

Straightening up, Jason stopped for a moment beside the water fountain, catching his breath as it suddenly came out in puffs of white. Up until then, he hadn't been able to see his deep inhales, causing him to wonder whether or not it was getting colder. Standing still, he waited for a gust of wind to whip past him to give him some sort of sign that it was time to pack it up and go home. Glancing down at his dog, he saw that Spunky was shaking under the frigid temperature despite the fact that she was encased in a blanket of thick fur.

"You wanna go home, Spunk?"

Spunky shook again, this time almost nervously, in response. Nodding to himself, Jason turned on heel and headed back the way he had come, half-jogging toward the statue he had passed a few minutes ago.

By the time he had returned to the thicket of trees, Jason stopped in mid-step, something inside the small forest catching his attention. He knew there had been a murder there the night before and that the police had advised residents to stay clear of the area for awhile, but due to some of the cases Jason had worked in the past, one involving the assets of a serial killer being bequeathed to his last living relative, he had learned that an offense never took place in the same spot two nights in a row. Usually, due to the attacker's warped mind, they waited before pouncing again, usually doing so on a ritualistic night of the week.

As he peered through the darkness at the leaves bouncing in the breeze, he could see the tatters of yellow crime scene tape whipping in the wind. Behind it was the tree Jason had heard the younger man had been thrown into, a dark stain on the trunk and dripping down toward the leafy ground.

Suddenly, the air became, if possible, colder than before, causing Spunky to shake violently before taking off in the other direction. As the leash pulled on Jason's arm, causing his elbow to crack painfully, he tried to tug against Spunky's slight weight before the leash snapped in half and his dog began making its way toward home.

"Stop!" Jason yelled involuntarily as the currents picked up to a hurricane-like speed, pushing his blonde hair off his face. Taking a step forward, he made to jog after Spunky, but instead placed his foot back on the ground lightly as a shape blinked in and out in front of him. "What the—"

Before he could get his sentence out, the figure solidified into that of a man with long, scraggly hair and feral gray eyes, a gleaming scalpel in his hand that he played with as he stared feverishly at Jason's face.

Taking a step backward, Jason watched the man move slowly forward, his eyes tracing the scars embedded in his cheeks. As he absorbed the guy's appearance, noting that nothing about him seemed remotely human, Jason recalled a story he had been told at work not long ago, a story involving a murder spree that stretched from Portland to Bayview. At the time, he had taken the tale with a grain of salt, especially since the man who told it, Hector Robbins, had been as much of a fabler as he was a lawyer—though Hector claimed the two often went hand-in-hand.

However, the gory details in Hector's story, from the scars on the man's face to the deep bruises clouding his eyes, seemed to match the account to a T. As Jason stepped backwards, hoping to stay out of the guy's grasp should he suddenly lunge forward, he kept his gaze trained on the man. Red lines ran from the corner of his mouth to the apples of his cheeks, the color deepening in the cold breeze that was picking up. As he walked through the damp grass, his feet made no noise whatsoever, not even displacing the water that had settled there in puddles from the storm a handful of hours before.

Recognizing this as truly abnormal, Jason tried to remember the tail end of Hector's story, the part that amounted to the guy's demise. Ultimately, he couldn't remember, though he did know the simple fact that the man _had_ died. How he was standing there, looking like some kind of specter, was beyond Jason's depth of understanding—and he really didn't care to, either. All he wanted at the moment was to track down Spunky and take her home to the safety that was their apartment. This guy could terrorize someone else for all Jason cared, just as long as the cut-up man left him and his dog alone.

Gathering as much courage as he could, Jason turned to run in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, before he got more than a step, the man's figure blinked into sight directly in front of him, close enough for their arms to rub against one another. Taking advantage of Jason's momentary surprise, the man grasped for Jason's t-shirt, his grip stronger than expected and pulling all the fabric into one fist-full. Feeling constricted, Jason tried to fight against the hold, but instead found it useless. No matter how much he pulled, wiggled, or tried to jump free, nothing worked. The only thing the motions seemed to do was cause Jason to become drained of energy.

"Let me go!" Jason breathed, making a fist to throw feebly toward the man's face. However, his punch went unconnected as his balled-up hand sailed directly through the other guy's head. Swallowing hard, Jason let out a sharp breath. "Holy—"

Suddenly, Jason found himself flying through the air, landing unceremoniously on the grass twenty yards from where he had been. Without a moment's thought, he attempted to jump onto his feet and take off before the other man could catch up. Unluckily, Jason was pinned down in the wet lawn by an invisible force before he could even try.

"_You robbed me!_" a bodiless voice echoed throughout the night. Looking around, Jason attempted to find the source of the sound, only to see nothing but the park around him. "_You robbed me! You robbed me! You robbed me!_"

"I-I didn't!" Jason pleaded, his own voice coming out low compared to the shrillness of the screaming, shrieking noise as it continued to escalate, repeating the same phrase over and over again. "I don't even know you!"

"_Liar!_"

As soon as the words had vanished in the air, the figure of the man appeared again, a deep scowl wound into his expression as he hunched over Jason lying flat on his back. Crawling on his knees, the man neared Jason, the red of the permanent smile deepening and turning slightly downwards in his darkened glower. Rising up to tower over his victim, the man clasped the scalpel between his lips, his eyes searching Jason's face to take in the terror that was undoubtedly there. Smiling in satisfaction, the man lowered himself back down to all fours and removed the weapon, coming close to Jason's chest before straddling him. As the man sat on Jason's ribs, he could barely feel the other guy's weight, though he assumed his attacker to be twice as heavy as himself based on the sheer size of him. Instead, there was nothing, making Jason wonder whether or not he was experiencing some sort of hallucination.

Seeming to understand Jason's dubiousness, the man's smile broadened. Grasping the instrument tighter in his hand, he lowered the point toward Jason's mouth, his smile turning into a mischievous grin.

Suddenly, cold metal poked at the inside of Jason's cheek at the same time the rest of his body went numb. As the deadening sensation passed down his body, finally reaching his toes, true panic began to set in. He felt paralyzed, as though he had been given anesthesia in every limb, and as he tried to move his fingers and toes, he found that he couldn't feel them.

_I'm going to die. I'm really going to die, _Jason thought, his eyes widening as he felt blood begin to drip onto his tongue.

In one unexpected bout of adrenaline, Jason attempted to fight back, clamping his teeth over the blade to keep it from continuing its work. As he did so, he noticed that the man hunched over him had scowled again, his brow furrowing as his gray hair fell into his face, darkening his already-ominous expression.

Grasping Jason's cheeks, the man closed his fist around the scalpel firmly before removing it from Jason's mouth. Wagging a bloody finger—_my blood!_—in front of Jason's face, the man shook his head before resuming his activities with renewed gusto. Again, another wave of numbness fell over Jason, rendering him completely useless.

Grinning in absolute happiness, the man cackled. "Open wide!"


	9. Seven

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

SEVEN

Penobscot County Precinct  
>Bangor, Maine<br>Friday, August 4, 2006  
>7:18 AM<p>

**F**or some reason, Sam had known they had burned the wrong bones the night before, but it was only until the televised news report earlier that morning that his feelings were confirmed. Directly after stirring awake, and directly after discovering that Dean was already up and watching TV, Sam had heard the story of another murder in the park, this one exactly like the first, though in an area a few yards from the initial victim.

Glancing over at his brother, Sam had noticed that Dean was already on top of it, his back propped up against the worn headboard of his bed and Sam's computer in his lap. Beside him were piles of papers that had been printed out across the room, crinkled in the middle from where they had obviously slid off the bed and been caught at the last minute. Resting on the nightstand between them was Dad's journal, flipped open to the middle to display the break in the missing pages, though clearly discarded from Dean's current search. It seemed as if his brother hadn't found anything in there and had thrown it aside, the book falling open wherever it pleased—which just happened to be there.

After kicking his way out of the tangled covers he had awoken in, Sam had headed straight for the bathroom, not bothering to ask Dean if he had stumbled upon anything useful. If he had, Dean wouldn't have waited for his brother to wake up on his own to tell him. Instead, Sam let Dean continue working uninterrupted, opting for a shower to get him ready for whatever was about to be laid out for him while he got dressed. Unfortunately, when he emerged from the bathroom, the only thing that greeted him was an irritated look, one that told Sam that he and Dean would be making a trip down to the sheriff's station first thing.

"According to all the news websites, some guy claims to have seen what happened," Dean filled him in while he drove them into Bangor. "The cops found it suspicious, so they hauled him in for questioning. Three hours later and they still haven't let him go. Apparently they want to make it look like they're doing their jobs."

Smirking to himself, Sam remained silent while his brother pulled the Impala into the lot he had parked in the last time they had been there, the same lot from which they had seen Dad and his new partner getting into the black GMC their father had bought back when Dean had turned eighteen. Biting his lip, Sam looked over at the building across the street, remembering the homicide detective they had met inside and how she had mentioned a pair of federal agents taking her desk and relegating her to the front entrance. At the time, he hadn't put the pieces together, but now that he thought about it, it was perfectly plausible that his father had been one part of that pair.

Clearing his throat, Sam kicked the idea away as Dean pulled the folded-up papers that had been lying on his bed from his pocket. Handing them over to Sam, the two read through the various articles and snippets of information about the attack, noting that the only difference between this one and the last was the fact that the guy hadn't retained bruises around his eyes like the first. It seemed as though, or so the article from the _Portland Press Herald_ claimed, the second victim hadn't put up as much of a fight as the first, leaving hardly any blood behind after the fact. Also according to the article, a man riding his bike to work had caught most of the fight from the street, not hurrying to help but instead watching everything from the curb until the attacker disappeared "in the blink of an eye".

As he and Dean traded papers, with Sam only seeing more of the same, Sam could feel his mind begin to wonder—not about the case, but about the last time he and Dean had been in this very spot. It had been dark, even with the one streetlamp overhead providing enough light to make out the road between them and the building across the way, but it was sufficient in catching Dad and that girl—or woman, or whatever she was—in the act of leaving the precinct. At the time, Sam had wanted to abandon the case to follow them, but Dean had fought against that tooth and nail to keep him focused on the job they were working. Now it seemed as if his brother was doing the same thing, this time giving him things to read to keep his mind from abandoning ship.

In all honesty, despite the swallowing feeling that they had been wrong the night before, Sam had been hoping the hunt had been finished without a hitch. Before going to bed, he had pecked around on his computer, hoping to find something that would lead him in the direction of what Dad was doing, ready to become fully involved in finding out. Unfortunately, it seemed as if this case didn't want to stay closed, meaning that Sam was going to have to sideline the Dad issue for now to seal shut what they were currently working on—which was, frankly, disappointing.

"Sam? Earth to Sam," Dean said, raising an eyebrow as he reached for the crinkled pages in his brother's hand. "Your head in the game here?"

"Yeah. I'm fine," Sam lied, nodding and popping open the door to the car. Climbing out, he shot a look at Dean as his brother shoved an FBI badge into the inside lining of his suit jacket, pulling on the collar of his dress shirt as though the tie was too tight. Grinning to himself, Sam did the same absently before rounding the grill of the Impala. "So, what's the plan here, exactly? Go in and talk to the witness?"

"Among other things," Dean frowned.

Bunching his jaw, Sam made to ask his brother more questions, but was denied the opportunity as Dean lead the way to the front of the precinct. Pulling open the glass front doors, Sam followed his brother inside, taking in the awkward state of the lobby. The small area surrounding the receptionist's desk was crowded with people sitting in chairs, looking nervous as they sat unaccompanied. Near one of the two doors on either side of the wall behind a short, blonde woman was a group of officers, each with a file folder folded back in their hands as they ticked off a list inside. The other door opposite it was swung open to allow the sounds of phones ringing off the hook to break into the pensive silence of the lobby. Behind the cluster of seated people was one more door swung open, this one revealing the morgue Sam and Dean had been in with Detective Rachelle Williams, an African-American officer who seemed to take kindly to Dean.

However, the woman didn't seem to be around anywhere, meaning that the two had to reintroduce themselves to the blonde behind the receptionist's desk. As they neared her station, Sam noticed that she had been watching them, her eyes wide with recognizable interest, the soft brown taking in their suits and soon the badges the brothers were flashing.

"Can I help you?" she asked quietly, folding her hands nervously over the keyboard on the tabletop in front of her.

"You might," Dean smiled, turning on the charm that often caused Sam to roll his eyes. "I'm Special Agent Hammond and this is my partner, Agent Cates. We were hoping to talk to Eddie Waitkus. We heard you brought him in last night on suspicion of murder."

"Word travels fast," the blonde said, buying into Dean's smile and returning one of her own. "I'll page Sheriff Harris, see if he's in. You mind waiting?"

"Not at all," Dean smirked, backing up from the desk. As he and Sam took a few steps away from the blonde, Dean shot a look around the room, eyeing the people who were waiting and the officers watching them. Sam did the same, noticing that each of the civilians appeared to be at least forty or fifty years old, and each seemed extremely anxious. The cops, on the other hand, seemed smug as they continued ticking off whatever was on the pages hidden in the folders in front of them.

Turning back to his brother, Dean leaned forward to speak quietly. "Great. Working with Harris again. That guy's a peach."

"Yeah, I know," Sam scoffed.

The last time the brothers had worked with Sheriff William Harris, the man had seemed dubious of Sam and Dean's credentials. Thankfully, the two had ducked out from beneath his radar before he could begin to ask questions, and were lucky enough to not encounter him again during their last case. However, it seemed as though this time the brothers had walked straight into the lion's den, and if Harris began inquiring about their authorization, they wouldn't be able to slip away as easily, especially with the number to the real FBI posted on every wall of the building, along with the Most Wanted list.

_Here's hoping he doesn't ask_, Sam thought as the door to the left side of the receptionist's desk swung open to reveal the sheriff. The man was short, paunchy, and balding, with a permanent glare on his face that made him appear constantly annoyed. As he looked out at Sam and Dean, recognizing them instantly, his irritated expression deepened into a scowl. Beckoning for them to come forward, Harris held the door open for them to pass through, not saying a word until they cleared the threshold.

"Gentlemen," Harris muttered, "I thought you'd be long gone by now."

"No such luck," Dean smirked. "We were in town closing up a few loose ends when we stumbled onto this. Thought it might be worth looking into before heading back."

Rolling his eyes, Harris let the door fall shut behind him before pushing past Dean and leading down the stark white hallway in front of them. As they walked, they passed open doors to small offices, most of them containing a pair of desks facing one another on opposite walls. Every now and again, an officer or a suited detective would be sitting inside, focused intently on something before them or on the phone heatedly discussing a case.

"No, Johnson, that's not what I said. What I said is that I need the blood work back from the lab _today_," a voice from one of the rooms yelled, following the Winchesters and Harris down the corridor as it echoed behind them.

Exchanging a grin with Dean, Sam let his eyes wonder around the hall, noticing that the floor was a flecked, tan linoleum that seemed to be curling at the point in which it met with the whitewashed baseboards. The walls were devoid of posters except for the occasional directional arrow leading to different areas of the precinct. On the doors were name plates with handwritten notes clipped to a magnet board beneath them, each probably detailing whatever the officers and detectives inside were working on.

"So, you're interested in talking to that scum Waitkus, huh?" Harris said finally, turning a corner that curved to the right. "Can't imagine what you're going to get out of him, if anything. The guy hasn't talked to anyone after we brought him in. He spilled all his guts out at the park. Probably regrets it now that we've got him cornered."

Clearing his throat to keep from laughing at the sheriff's absolute confidence, Dean rolled his eyes behind Harris's back as they stopped beside a closed-off threshold. Through the small window inside the door, Sam could see a blonde, wiry man inside, his hands cuffed together as he sat patiently at a table positioned in the center of the room. Frowning, Sam watched as Harris turned to face them, his annoyed expression now one of intense curiosity.

"How long's he been in there?" Dean asked, peeking in.

"Since about five this morning. Hasn't said anything since then, either."

"Why isn't he in a holding cell?" Sam piped up, furrowing his brow.

Raising an eyebrow, Harris scratched at the back of his neck, his irritated appearance flooding his features once again. Ignoring the question, he reached for the door handle, unlocked it with a key from around his belt, and walked away, leaving a cloud of agitation in his wake. Before he turned the corner, he stopped to about-face, pointing a finger harshly at Sam and Dean. "You have one hour."

Grinning mischievously, Dean bit back a laugh as Harris disappeared. "Guy should probably get his blood pressure checked."

Smirking, Sam pushed the door open and headed into the dark interrogation room, letting Dean follow behind before shutting them off from the rest of the station. As soon as the door snapped closed on its own, the man inside, Eddie Waitkus, looked up, his curious expression matching that of the one Harris had shot them in the hallway. "You my lawyers?"

"No," Sam said, shooting Eddie a small, reassuring smile. "We're Agents Cates and Hammond. We're from the FBI. We'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind."

"This again," Eddie scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I told the detectives everything before getting stuck in here. Why don't you just ask one of them? I'm sure they'll be overjoyed to share a laugh with you both. You seem like you could use one."

"Actually," Dean said, sitting down across from Waitkus and narrowing his eyes, "we'd like to hear everything straight from you."

Pausing a moment, Eddie's eyes flickered between Dean in his chair and where Sam stood near the door. In the silence, Sam reached inside his coat pocket, removing the palm-sized notebook he had been using a Jaime Karnes's house and uncapped the pen with his teeth. After a long minute, Eddie finally cleared his throat, seeming to deem the two agents as trustworthy.

"I was riding my bike on my way to work," he began, his voice slow and steady. "It's something I do every day since they repo'd my car. I always ride past the park, so I guess it slipped my mind that there had been a murder there yesterday while I was off since I was running on routine and coffee." Clearing his throat again, Eddie pursed his lips before continuing. "Anyway, I reached the park at about 4:45 or so. I had looked at my watch around that time to make sure I wasn't late—my boss would have had my ass if I was. When I was looking down, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, this guy just lying there. I heard something, too, a voice, but I couldn't place it. It seemed to be coming out of nowhere, if that's even possible."

Shooting Sam a curious look, Dean took his eyes off of Eddie during the guy's pause in his story. Scribbling down the tidbit of information, Sam exchanged a nod with his brother before turning back to Waitkus.

"I stopped to see what was going on, but didn't get off my bike. Before I could, this guy appeared over the other guy, bending over him in this kind of… _gay_ way. I thought maybe they were playing rough in the park, thinking no one would see them, but that's when I noticed the knife. Actually, it was a scalpel, I think," Eddie said, biting his lip. "Whatever it was, the guy wasn't no surgeon. The next thing I know, dude's got the other one on top of him and the guy's slicing into him. I wanted to help, but I just _couldn't_. I was too afraid to."

"So instead you called the cops?" Sam guessed.

"Yeah, man, I did," Eddie scoffed. "Worst decision of my life, too. By the time I finished talking to the 911 operator, the other guy was gone, just disappeared in the blink of an eye. When the cops arrived, I told them everything and they arrested _me_."

"Did you get a good look at the guy?" Dean asked, pursing his lips in thought.

"I did," Eddie nodded, the steadiness in his voice faltering as he began to speak quickly, seeming as though divulging this part for the first time. "I saw everything. He was dressed in these old clothes, maybe a bowling shirt and some polyester pants. His hair was long and scraggly like he hasn't taken a shower in a few decades, y'know? His face was all carved up and beat up, like he went twelve rounds with a block of cement. And he had this-this nose, this hook nose. But everything about him was gray, like a _weird _gray. Like he was tinted somehow."

"Have you ever seen him before?" Sam asked.

Shaking his head, Eddie Waitkus swallowed hard before messing absently with his handcuffs. Letting out a deep breath, Sam watched while Dean eyed the man, as though mentally scanning him for clues as to whether or not he was lying to them. Passing the inspection, Dean got to his feet and crossed the room to pull open the door.

"We're done here," he muttered as he passed Sam, turning the knob.

Before they could leave, Eddie called after them, causing both brothers to turn around. "Wait! What about these? You believe me, right?"

Nodding, Sam smiled sadly at Eddie. "We'll see what we can do."

Letting the door fall shut behind them, Dean turned to Sam in the hallway, crossing his arms over his chest and backing away from the small window to keep them out of Waitkus's line of sight. "So, what d'you think?"

"Well, we don't really have a lot to go on," Sam admitted with a sigh. "All we know is that both victims were reportedly men in their early twenties and were both attacked by the same guy. I thought we had it with Ronald Mercer, but—"

"We were wrong. Yeah, I know," Dean finished for him, pulling at his earlobe. "But maybe we weren't that far off."

"What do you mean?"

"You heard the description of the dude, right? Polyester pants, bowling shirt? Those are clothes straight out of the seventies. Unless the guy's waiting for _that_ fashion statement to come back around, we probably hit the right era, just not the right guy," Dean explained.

Biting his lip, Sam furrowed his brow as he thought, looking behind his brother to the hallway that stretched out before them. It was possible—actually, probable—that Dean was right, but there was no way to narrow down the suspect list based solely on what the guy was wearing. There was also the fact that, out of every search Sam had conducted online when looking for facts on Ronald Mercer, the guy had been the only one who turned up that had killed his victims in the way the two men at the park had died. Unless he had been framed—

All of a sudden, Sam straightened, grinning to himself. Raising an eyebrow, Dean looked up at his brother, clearly confused as to what it was that had the younger Winchester suddenly so giddy. "What? What is it?"

Smiling wider, Sam started down the hallway. "I have an idea."


	10. Eight

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

EIGHT

Penobscot County Precinct  
>Bangor, Maine<br>Friday, August 4, 2006  
>9:42 AM<p>

**D**ean stared at his brother from across the filing room the blonde receptionist had lead them to. The space was small and as stark white as the hallway outside, with steel cabinets of an equally bright gray shining from every wall possible. Most of the drawers, thanks to Sam and his hurried search to find some unspoken piece of information, were wide open, forming a tiny, dangerous walkway leading to the back of the room. At the end of the thin path stood Sam, his back to his brother as he flipped through the folder in his hand, turning back pages that had been clipped or stapled to the manila.

Rolling his eyes, Dean kept his stare trained on Sam, trying to figure out just what his brother was looking for. He hadn't said much since revealing the fact that he had an idea, only speaking to the receptionist about needing access to the police reports from 1978. After that, Sam had clammed up, refusing to say anything as he set to work digging through the mess that now stretched out between them.

The blonde hadn't been able to tell either brother exactly where they would be able to find the documents they were looking for, giving them a guesstimate of their location. However, before she could help them search, Sheriff Harris had stolen her away to fill out a few things he needed to be processed "on the spot". In Dean's opinion, it was Harris's way of getting back at them for talking their way into the filing room in the first place.

Thankfully, though, neither Harris nor the receptionist had asked what they needed the records from 1978 for, leaving the brothers to their own devices as they searched. Shutting the door behind him after taking the blonde, who he called Lizzie, Harris had closed them off from the rest of the precinct, giving Sam and Dean free reign over whatever was in the room. And Sam seemed to be intent on maximizing their time inside.

Immediately after starting, Sam hadn't ordered Dean to help him and had instead left him alone by the door. Sliding open every drawer he came across, Sam searched feverishly through every one, reading the dates on the file folders as he pulled them out and, when he deemed them not what he was looking for, pushed them back in haphazardly. By the time he was done with the first cabinet, he left the drawers out to trip over as he moved onto the next, repeating his actions and leaving the room a mess in his wake.

Watching him go, Dean could feel his mind begin to wonder just what his brother was up to. While they had been in the room with Eddie Waitkus, nothing the man had said had sparked some kind of idea in his head, instead leaving Dean confused. A spirit dressed like he belonged in the era of Zeppelin didn't tell them anything that they hadn't already known—that the ghost, when it had been alive, had been at large back in the seventies. It seemed, though, that something that had been said had caused Sam to kick into a mode Dean had seen his brother fall into many times before, the mode that told him his younger brother was onto something. Knowing full well that that meant Sam was best left to discover whatever he needed to on his own, Dean kept quiet, instead trying to solve the mystery in his head before Sam could say it out loud.

However, Dean was drawing nothing but blanks and becoming irritated.

Turning his thoughts away, Dean tapped his fingers against his thighs as he noticed Sam's stamina begin to slow. His brother was definitely losing the vigor he had begun with, and, judging by the hunch of his shoulders, was becoming slowly disappointed. Biting his lip, Dean watched as Sam read the documents in his hands over twice before shutting the folder and replacing it, grabbing the one behind it as soon as the other was back in its spot.

Flipping back the cover, Sam slumped as he read the first few sentences, the apparent realization that whatever he was looking for wasn't there breaking through his features. Though Dean could only see half of his brother's expression due the way he was turned, he could tell that Sam's brow was furrowed in concentration, his bottom lip clamped between his teeth in thought. As he watched him, Dean took in his brother's profile of deep-set eyes and an upturned nose, the slow curve of it reminding him of a ski jump.

Smirking to himself, Dean looked down at the ground, noticing that some of the papers from the files Sam had looked through had found themselves on the linoleum. Bending down to pick one up, Dean scanned its contents before placing it on the short cabinet beside him. Thankfully, before he could reach for the next, the sound of a relieved sigh came from across the room, taking Dean's attention away from the tan flooring beneath both of their feet.

"I think I got it," Sam said, shutting the folder over his thumb and absently pushing the open drawers shut as he crossed over to his brother. "I wasn't sure at first, but now that I'm looking at it, it should have been obvious."

"What should have been obvious?" Dean frowned. Grinning, Sam thrust the file forward, attempting to get Dean to see for himself rather than share with the rest of the class. Pushing it back toward his brother, Dean rolled his eyes, then narrowed them. "I'm not reading that. Just tell me what it says."

"It's an old police report," Sam scowled, shaking his head in disappointment, "filed the day _after _Ronald Mercer was shot and killed in the park. According to what it says in here, police found no evidence that the guy had actually been the one behind it. He just took the heat for the murders since they stopped the same day the guy was killed."

"So, what? He was framed?"

"Essentially, yeah," Sam nodded. "Someone else must have been executing the homicides and made it look like Mercer was the one doing it. I mean, they wouldn't have to work very hard. The guy already had a history of violence. All they would've had to do was place a smoking gun in his hand."

"Good job," Dean groaned, pulling on his earlobe. "And this guy got the axe for it?"

Nodding again, Sam flipped open the folder and pointed to the middle of the first page. "It says here that the cops followed Mercer back from Wilmington's Drug Store that night and found him in the park. Apparently one of them got trigger-happy and shot him without probable cause. There was a court case and everything."

"You didn't find that while you were looking this dude up online?" Dean frowned.

"Well, I—" Sam stammered, his eyes softening into a puppy-dog stare.

"Save it," Dean interrupted, holding up a hand. "Just get to the good parts, will ya?"

Clearing his throat, Sam took a deep breath before continuing, his gaze hardening back into one of concentration. "According to this, the police initially suspected Mercer when he was brought to the hospital due to blood loss from being attacked like the other victims. The EMTs claimed to have found a scalpel on his body with residue on it that matched the tar that had been found in some of the previous victims' wounds. After that, they locked him up, but was released the next day when they couldn't pin anything on him. The day after that was the day he was shot."

"And what happened after he was dead? Did anyone else die after that?"

"Actually," Sam grinned, obviously trying to hold back his excitement, "there was one more death after Ronald Mercer was killed, but this one was a suicide. Apparently a man named Alan Gregory was found dead in the park, slashed up the same way as the other victims, though obviously self-inflicted judging by the way he was cut and beaten. _And_, there was a note found along with the body."

"A note?" Dean asked, furrowing his brow. "Saying what?"

"'_You stole from me_.'"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Best guess?" Sam shrugged. "Ronald Mercer stole his glory. When the news went public that Mercer was shot and killed, it kind of became a phenomenon. I guess Gregory decided he wanted that all to himself after all, but didn't know how to get it without being thrown in jail. Probably saw this as the only way to get people's attention. Explains why the guy's spirit sticks around until someone witnesses the murder."

"Yeah, but it didn't catch on," Dean smirked. "Even now."

"No, it didn't. The guy wasn't mentioned anywhere that I could find, not even that _Murder in Maine _book I took from the library. I had to dig through all this to even find the police report from both incidents. Thankfully, they were filed in chronological order, and since the incidents happened within a day of each other…"

"They were easy to find," Dean finished for him, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Okay, so, say you're right about this, how can we be sure? I mean, we were wrong the first time and you were pretty positive then, too."

Nodding, Sam cleared his throat and grinned. "Remember what I said about benzole being found in the victim's wounds, both now _and_ then? Alan Gregory worked for the city, repairing the road, and sometimes got the chemicals on his hands when he wasn't careful."

"That crap will burn you," Dean grimaced.

"Yeah, I know," Sam nodded. "But according to the medical examiner's report in here, the guy was on a heavy dose of valium at the time and probably couldn't even feel it. It probably made him numb to everything." Stopping to take in his brother's dubious look, Sam rolled his eyes and flipped back a few pages in the folder before shoving it toward his older brother, adding flatly, "And there's a picture."

"Why didn't you just say that?" Dean groaned.

Sighing at Sam's glare, Dean finally accepted the file and peered down at the black-and-white photograph in his hand. Staring up at him was the top half of a man with unwashed hair and a hook nose, his clothes the unmistakable stripes matching that of a bowling shirt. Shaking his head in disbelief, Dean let out a contented sigh. "I'll be damned."

Smiling now, probably in relief of not having to ramble off any more details, Sam snatched the folder from Dean and held it under his arm. Grinning in response, Dean watched as his brother reached for the door handle and strode out into the hallway, making his way back to where they had abandoned Eddie Waitkus. Following, Dean let the filing room door slam loudly shut behind him as he trailed Sam, allowing his brother to enter the interrogation room first. As soon as they were inside, Dean noticed that Waitkus was staring absently at the wall, seemingly unaware of the brothers' presence.

"Let me guess: more questions," Waitkus muttered, not taking his eyes off the invisible spot he was eyeing. "You said you were going to get me out of here."

"And we will," Sam lied, giving Waitkus a reassuring smile. "We just need you to _confirm _a few things beforehand, alright?" Slapping the file folder down on the table with determination, Sam pushed it toward Eddie, watching as the man's eyes turned from behind Sam to what was in front of him. Blanching at the picture, he pushed it back with his cuffed hands. Noticing the reaction, Sam bunched his jaw and shot a furtive glance at Dean. "That's the guy, isn't it?"

"Yeah, that's him, alright," Waitkus said, his skin becoming paler as he glared at the photograph across the table. "He's missing the scars, but that's him."

Nodding in thanks, Sam collected the folder and tucked it back under his arm, turning on heel to leave the room. As they exited, Dean shot a glance back at Eddie Waitkus, taking in the fact that the guy looked like he was about to be sick.

Letting the door shut behind him, Dean lead the way back down the hallway into the lobby, peering around at the now-empty space for the blonde receptionist that had left her station. Seeing that no one was there, Dean let out a sigh before exchanging a nod with Sam and pushing open the doors to outside.

As soon as they were back in the morning sun, Dean pulled at his tie, loosening it as he walked toward the car. Beside him, Sam had the file folder open again, the pages blowing in the slight breeze wafting through the street between the police precinct and the empty lot containing nothing but the Impala. By the time they were beside the car, their feet crunching on the gravel covering the space, both brothers stopped in mid-step, turning to look at the front of the building.

Only a two nights ago, during an argument over Dean's reckless ideas and Sam's worsening nightmares, both brothers had seen their father climb into the cab of his truck with someone else, someone they didn't know. As he stared at it now, Dean could see the faint shadow of Dad's truck sitting in one of the few stalls beside the front door, an overhead streetlamp casting an orange shine on the roof as Dad got into the driver's seat. On the passenger's side had been a tall, thin girl with a sizable bust and shapely legs, both of which had been hugged by the jean skirt and t-shirt she wore. Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to get much of a glance at her aside from that. His attention had immediately been turned elsewhere as soon as his eyes fell on the license plate of the car, recognizing the combination of letters and numbers as the ones matching Dad's.

However, Dean knew that he and his brother weren't staring absently at the front of the police station just for memories' sake. Now that they were almost done with the job Dad had handed them—or hopefully almost done, anyway—there was still the idea of confronting their father over his suspicious behavior. Though yesterday Dean would have been against the thought of breaking the unspoken honor code between father and son, the respect for boundaries and secrets, he couldn't help but begin to side with Sam and his curiosity. There was something going on with Dad that needed to be unearthed, and the more Dean thought about it, the more he couldn't help but think that girl Dad was with was part of the reason Dean felt that way.

Letting out a deep sigh, Dean turned his attention away from the Penobscot County precinct and unlocked the driver's side door. He could think about what to do with Sam and Dad _after _they got rid of Alan Gregory's remains. For now, they had a spirit to put to rest.


	11. Nine

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

NINE

Woodland Cemetery  
>Brewer, Maine<br>Friday, August 4, 2006  
>9:18 PM<p>

**D**arkness cascaded over most of the Impala as Sam and Dean made their way up the sloping drive of the Woodland Cemetery. The place hadn't been hard to find, just following the road in and out of town that they had taken during their previous case, but had been hardly noticeable from the street, hidden behind overgrown trees and shrubs. The only sign that indicated they had stumbled upon what they were looking for was a small section of white picket fence that stood alone on an expansive stretch of grass, a board tacked to it advertising the name of the graveyard.

Turning onto the unguarded path leading uphill, Dean had switched the high beams on, shining light on the blackness that swallowed both sides of the driveway. Beyond the headlights seemed to be nothing but trees and asphalt, causing Sam to wonder just how far from the road this place really was.

While they climbed, Sam reminded himself of the information he had stumbled upon while waiting for night to fall. After returning to the motel, neither he nor Dean had been particularly talkative, choosing to go their separate ways in the room while both of them sorted through what they had been thinking outside the police station. Though Sam knew his brother's thoughts weren't much different from his own—that now that they were closing in on the end of the case, Sam and Dean were now free to meddle in Dad's business—it seemed as if neither of them wanted to vocalize it just yet. Instead, Sam had hopped behind his computer, looking to confirm the information about Alan Gregory's final resting place that had been handwritten into the man's police report.

However, after shutting down his laptop, Sam had run out of things to do and was faced with the idea of sitting idle while they waited for sunset. Dean had already settled himself down behind the TV, tuned into some Lifetime Original Movie—which, at Sam's raise of an eyebrow, Dean had immediately change the channel. Finally stopping on _Deadwood_, the two sat in silence with Sam engrossing himself in his own thoughts while Dean became consumed with whatever was going on onscreen. However, it wasn't long before Sam had become restless, his mind re-running over the possibilities of what Dad could be doing, and driving him to find something to keep him occupied.

Deciding to go out for food, Sam had returned to find Dean on his computer, looking something up with a scowl deepening into his face. Without being prompted, Dean had announced that he had a theory about something, but had proved himself wrong. Not bothering to ask, Sam shrugged it off and handed him his burger, the two of them immediately falling silent as they ate.

By the time dusk came, Sam had been ready to head out, waiting for his brother to finish cleaning the weapons before making a move for it. As Dean polished the inside of the shotgun barrel, something he had done _twice_ ever since using it in the rain, Sam had begun to gather the things they need, hoping that they wouldn't have to waste any time searching for the large container of rock salt that seemed to find its way deeper into the trunk with each case. When they were done and collected, the two had headed toward the Impala, tearing out of the lot and leaving behind a trail of dust in their wake.

The drive into Brewer had been quiet underneath the thumping bass of _Back in Black_, the music Dean usually turned up in anticipation of a fight. Sam, on the other hand, braced himself in other ways, staring out the window and steeling himself for the action that was undoubtedly going to take place. If Alan Gregory was anything like the police report described, they were about to go head-to-head with the spirit of a man that was tricky and inventive, and that was something Sam wasn't all-too excited about.

Looking ahead, Sam could see the end of the driveway, which curved to the right into a small parking lot beside a slab of unmarked stone. Pulling the car into one of the spots, Sam and Dean immediately popped open the doors, rounding to the trunk to remove the packed duffle bags they had put together back in Bayview. Throwing one over his shoulder, Sam grabbed a flashlight from inside the Impala's false bottom, figuring it safe to use since they were well hidden from the street. Clicking it on, he pointed the beam out toward the tombstones that punctuated the muted green around them, reaching into his coat pocket with his free hand to remove the map of plots he had printed out earlier.

"What do we got?" Dean asked, slamming the lid of the trunk.

Holding the crinkled paper out in front of him, Sam waited for Dean to shine his light on the page and move closer. When he did, the two scanned the diagram, hoping to memorize it to keep from having to stop and look every few minutes to make sure they were headed in the right direction. Exchanging a nod, Dean hitched his bag closer to his collar bone and lead the way into the labyrinth of headstones.

Darkness swallowed them again as they walked, with Sam occasionally pointing his flashlight beam onto Dean's back to make sure his brother was still with him. The grass beneath their feet squished silently, damp from the rainstorm the night before, causing Sam's sneakers to become wet the deeper they trailed into the graveyard. By the time they reached their destination toward the middle of the cemetery, a slight breeze had picked up. Looking toward the sky, Sam could see the clouds churning threateningly in the bright moonlight that sometimes broke through the thick foliage overhead, more rain threatening to fall.

Keeping his fingers crossed that they were done dealing with Alan Gregory before it poured, Sam rolled his shoulders back and pointed his beam toward the slabs of marble in front of him. Washed-away names reflected back at him, some of the lettering faded due to the years of precipitation and salty sea air. Splitting from his brother, Sam continued down the line until he reached the end. Sitting last in a long stretch was the grave of Alan Gregory, the numbers on the shining marble glaring up at him as though brand new. Whistling for Dean, Sam furrowed his brow as he read the dates on the headstone, his brother jogging over and doing the same:

ALAN J. GREGORY  
>April 12, 1926 - August 4, 1978<br>"A man amongst men"

"Guess they couldn't think of anything nice to say for him, either," Dean smirked, pulling at his earlobe.

Frowning, Sam dropped his bag on the ground, bending down to remove the shovel from inside. Just as the night before, Dean begun to dig first, with Sam joining in after the first mound of dirt was tossed aside. Soon, the two became locked in concentration, both of them pushing aside heaps of mud and soil on autopilot as they wondered what might be thrown their way once they reached the bottom.

As they dug deeper, the wind began to pick up more violently, churning the clouds even quicker in the sky. Stopping a moment, Sam skewered the dirt with the point of his shovel, gazing around for anything abnormal. When he saw nothing, he continued. However, he couldn't help but notice the more earth they shoved aside, the harder the breeze began to blow, eventually becoming dangerous by the time they reached the lid of the casket.

Pushing himself up over the side of the freshly-dug grave, Sam got to his feet, nearing the duffle bag he had tossed aside to exchange the shovel for a sawed-off shotgun. Inside the hole, Dean removed the top of the coffin, standing on the edges of the wood to make sure his feet didn't accidentally cement down the cover.

Unfortunately, as soon as Dean bent down, two things happened at once: First, the gusts intensified, turning the weather into hurricane-like conditions and nearly knocking Sam into the headstone behind him. And second, a figure appeared at the foot of the grave, one of a man blinking in and out of sight. Narrowing his eyes against the wind, Sam went to aim the shotgun in his hand, only to have it knocked free by an invisible force.

"DEAN!" Sam shouted over the roar of the growing storm. Solidifying, the figure grinned. Immediately, Sam recognized the man, matching him with the picture he had found at the police station, though without the additional scars and bruises. Taking a step forward, Alan Gregory advanced slowly on Sam, his Chelsea Smile contorting into one of malicious intent. Swallowing hard, Sam carefully moved away from the spirit. "DEAN!"

Behind Gregory, Dean jumped out of the plot, rolling onto his side and grabbing his shotgun out of his unzipped bag in one motion. Pointing it at the spirit, he fired off a shot. Ultimately, the boom was swallowed by the gusts, as was the blast, instead pelting Dean with the rock salt rather than his target. Jumping onto his feet, Dean rounded the head of the grave and stood before his brother, turning his back on both Sam and the wind as it threatened to push him forward. Firing another round, the shot hit Gregory square in the chest, causing him to dissolve with the dissipating breeze.

Letting out a deep breath at the temporary relief, Sam jogged over to where his shotgun had landed, cracking it open to make sure it was alright before rejoining his brother.

"Let's fry this guy before he comes back, huh?" Dean said, his voice louder than the wind, making it clear that his hearing hadn't adjusted with the change in atmosphere.

Hopping back down, Dean continued lifting the lid from where it had fallen shut, pushing it father into the wide hole to keep it from closing on him a second time. Above, Sam uncapped the canister of salt, waiting for his brother to move out of the way before upending the cylinder.

As it poured, Sam noticed that the wind was rising again, this time more subtly than the first round. Hurrying over to the duffle, he found the lighter fluid and doused the skeleton from above, hoping that at least some of the liquid had reached the bottom of the grave due to the howling swells. However, before he could find out, the gusts began to push Sam backwards—right into a form that was blinking in and out of visibility.

"Sam!" Dean yelled, dropping the unlit lighter that was in his hands onto the wet grass and immediately exchanging it for the shotgun.

Unfortunately, Dean's movements were too late. Before he could aim the weapon, Gregory had already grasped Sam around the shoulders, pushing him into his jello-like chest and pointing a gleaming scalpel threateningly toward Sam's face. Gripping the shotgun tighter, Sam noticed that Dean's knuckles were whitening with the firmness of his hold, as though trying to restrain himself from firing. Though Sam knew the rock salt wouldn't do anything to him but sting like hell, it seemed as though Dean anticipated his blast would cause the spirit to begin slicing at his brother.

Laughing maniacally, Gregory pulled Sam closer, pressing the tip of the scalpel into the corner of his mouth. Swallowing hard, Sam attempted to break free, accidentally cutting his lip on the blade. As the blood trickled down his chin, Sam straightened, suddenly realizing that there was no way out from underneath Gregory's thumb.

"Let him go, Crazy Eight," Dean threatened, steadying the shotgun again.

Backing up, Gregory dragged Sam with him, laughing as he did so. Bunching his jaw, Sam attempted to look around, feeling the weapon bite into his mouth once again. On the ground, he could see the container of salt he had tossed away prior to grabbing the lighter fluid, its spout still turned up. Pursing his lips in an attempt to save himself from getting cut again, Sam kicked the cylinder backwards. A moment later and he heard an irritated growl come from behind him as the canister ricocheted off a tree and sprayed granules everywhere. Falling forward, Sam felt his body become freed of Gregory's hold.

Hurrying to his side, Dean bent down to help his brother up, placing his hand on the side of Sam's face as he wiped away the trickling blood. "You okay? Sammy?"

"Fine," Sam nodded, shrugging off his brother's grasp.

Smirking, Dean rolled his eyes. "Let's torch this sucker."

Suddenly a scream deeper into the cemetery caught both brothers' attention. Glancing around, Sam tried to locate the source of the noise. However, it seemed as though Dean had already done so, his eyes trained on a black spot toward a group of trees. Gripping his shotgun, Dean started toward the sound, turning to speak to his brother before fully taking off. "Burn him!"

Bunching his jaw in acceptance, Sam eyed the ground, attempting to find the Zippo Dean had dropped prior to picking up the shotgun. Finding it by the foot of the grave, Sam dove for it, flicking it on and dropping it into the hole. However, instead of being greeted by the roar of flames, he was instead confronted by another upstart of roaring wind.

Rolling onto his back, Sam saw Gregory standing near his knees, his twisted smile a bright red as though his wounds had become fresh again. "You robbed me!" Bending down, the spirit straddled Sam over the chest, running the tip of the scalpel over Sam's cheek as he spoke angrily. "You robbed me! _You _robbed _me_!" Grinning, the spirit placed the blade into Sam's mouth, the cold metal tasting like dirt. "Open wide!"

"Don't think so," Sam muttered, his voice coming out muffled.

Reaching his hand into his pockets, he attempted to dig out the pack of matches he had taken from the nightstand of the motel. Unfortunately, at the angle in which the spirit was sitting on him, Sam wasn't able to strike them against the back. _Damn it!_

Grinning wider, Gregory retracted the scalpel and held the instrument over Sam's face, placing the point uncomfortably close to his victim's eye. Stretching himself away, Sam attempted to wiggle his way out from underneath the spirit, only to be cloaked with a strange numbing sensation. After what felt like an eternity of staring down the blade of the scalpel, Sam could no longer feel anything, even as Gregory moved the weapon to begin slicing patterns into Sam's cheek.

In a moment of resistance, Sam moved away and turned his head in the direction his brother had run. "DEAN!"

All of a sudden, flames roared to life behind him. Glancing up, Sam noticed that Alan Gregory was disappearing, becoming swallowed in embers that engulfed the gray form sitting heaped on Sam's stomach. A second later and the spirit shrieked at an ear-splitting level, one that matched the exact scream that lead Dean away. Leaning his body back toward the sky, Gregory reached his fading arms forward as he slowly disappeared. Before he was gone, Sam felt the scalpel in Gregory's hand nick his face again, causing yet more blood to fall down his cheek. As the man vanished, cinders falling onto Sam's shirt before snuffing themselves out, Sam pushed himself up, pawing at the cuts on his face. Wincing at the sting and narrowing his eyes in the darkness, he could see blood on his hand, though not enough to be concerning.

From across the cemetery, Sam could hear his brother's heavy footfalls in the damp grass as he raced toward the glowing grave. Holding out a hand, Dean helped Sam to his feet, giving him a once-over when he was fully upright.

Glancing down at the flames inside the plot, Sam grinned wryly. "Looks like your lighter's a little slow to the punch."

"Yeah, or you are," Dean commented, clapping his hand on his brother's shoulder and smirking. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'll live," Sam replied, wiping absently at the blood on his face again.

"Come on. Let's go get you cleaned up."

Nodding, Sam headed toward his discarded duffle, collecting the strewn-out contents from where they lay across the grass. As he worked, occasionally rubbing off the dripping blood from his cheek with the sleeve of his sweater to keep it from getting anywhere else on his clothes, Sam let his mind wonder. No longer did he and Dean have a case to solve or a distraction to deal with. Now that Alan Gregory was put to rest, permanently, the both of them could turn their attention elsewhere—onto finding out what Dad was truly up to.

Glancing over at Dean as he hitched the bag over his shoulder, Sam stood up and furrowed his brow. Dean had a look on his face that seemed to show that his mind was warring with itself. His eyes were narrowed, his lips pursed, and his gaze steady as he looked out toward an invisible something behind his younger brother. After a long moment, he tore his stare away and turned toward the direction they had come, not saying anything except for a muttered, "You comin' or what?"

Smirking, Sam followed behind his brother, wondering how Dean was going to react to what the younger Winchester was going to propose they do now that the case was over. Some small part of him knew that Dean was becoming increasingly curious over Dad's activities—which may or may not be influenced by the fact that there's a girl involved—while another part of him knew his brother to be too loyal and trustworthy to want to go behind their father's back. However, the only way to know was to ask.

Opening his mouth, Sam cleared his throat.

"You hungry?" Dean interrupted, cutting his brother off and turning around.

"No," Sam frowned. "Dean, I—"

Holding up his hand to stop him, Dean shook his head. "Don't wanna talk about it."

"What do you—"

"Sam…" Dean warned, pulling on his earlobe and furrowing his brow. "What Dad does is his business. We're not about to go trample all over it just because you _think_ he might be upto something, alright?"

Scoffing, Sam shook his head. "Fine."

Roughly throwing his bag into the trunk, Sam pulled open the door to his side of the Impala and sank into the passenger's seat, slamming it shut behind him in anger. For some reason, Sam had been hoping that Dean would side with him on this, deciding to help alongside his brother when it came to figuring out what their father was up to. Instead, Dean had taken Dad's side _again_, just like he had every other time there was a feud between the oldest and youngest Winchester.

_Shouldn't have expected any different_.

On the other side of the car, Dean got behind the wheel, cranking the engine without saying a word. Backing out of the space, Dean directed the Impala down the sloping drive, glancing out the corner of his eye every few minutes before sneering at Sam's apparently irritated expression. "Sulk all you want, Sammy. I ain't helping you."

"Whatever," Sam muttered, fully aware of how immature the words sounded.

Seeming to pick up on it, Dean shook his head and grinned slyly, reaching forward to let _Back in Black _break the aggravated silence that was beginning to fill the car.


	12. Ten

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

TEN

Perko's Café  
>Brewer, Maine<br>Friday, August 4, 2006  
>11:05 PM<p>

**D**ean poked at the discarded French fries on his plate with a fork, watching as the thick layer of salt he had coated them with fell onto the ceramic dish and bounced away. He knew coming to the Perko's that shared the lot of the Brewer Motor Inn hadn't been a good idea, especially since he knew the owner of the motel they had burned down was still looking out for any sign of them, but he hadn't wanted Sam to tell him as much over and over again.

As soon as Dean had pulled the Impala into one of the few empty stalls outside the front door of the restaurant, Sam had demanded that they try somewhere else—somewhere that wouldn't include them having to pay thousands in damages as soon as Lester Cobb caught up with his two favorite pyromaniacs. Brushing him off, Dean had headed inside, certain that Sam would remain in the car to continue wiping the last remnants of blood from his face, and found a seat at a table hidden from windows, taking his brother's precaution to heart. Instead of staying outside, however, Sam had followed him in, repeating his warning like a broken record three times before a blonde waitress interrupted him at the most opportune time.

Falling silent, Dean had ordered a burger and fries while Sam asked for a Cobb salad—a joke that was too easy to make and too hard to hold back. After rolling his eyes and sighing, Sam had remained silent for most of the dinner, keeping his nose buried in Dad's ripped-up journal rather than saying anything. In all honesty, Dean had welcomed his brother's silence, taking it as a sign that Sam wouldn't try to persuade his older brother to break into their father's motel room for another poke around or whatever he had up his sleeve. Instead, Sam sat across from him, his eyes racing over the pages in front of him as though looking for some sort of written-down clue inside the lines of scrawl that littered the book. When he found nothing, he shut it and placed it back inside his coat pocket, taking his sweet time trying to get it to fit.

All the while, Dean had been eating—for something to do, if nothing else. Truthfully, he hadn't been that hungry when he suggested they grab some dinner, still coming down from the high he had felt during the battle with Alan Gregory's ghost. However, the suggestion he had proposed had been meant as a distraction, just like Dad and the case he had handed his sons. Unfortunately, now that they were finished with the job, it seemed as though nothing would sidetrack Sam from the goal he was now set on—that of finding out exactly what their father was doing.

Kicking the mashed fry away with the prongs of the fork, Dean began stabbing at another, letting his thoughts wonder. In all the time that they had been figuring out what was going on with the deaths in the park, Dean had played with the idea of siding with Sam, wondering if his brother truly was onto something when it came to whatever was up with Dad. Ultimately, though, the more Dean thought about it, the more he decided that whatever their father was doing, he was doing it for the greater good, and part of that greater good was keeping Sam and Dean out of it. Whatever it was, it was probably hazardous, and involving his sons would do nothing but add to the danger of the equation.

Back in Chicago, after the daevas had torn all three Winchesters to shreds, Dean had learned a valuable lesson about the way Dad hunted—that he was better off alone than with his sons.

"Sam! Listen to me! We almost got Dad killed in there. Don't you understand? They're not gonna stop; they're gonna try again. They're gonna use _us_ to get to _him_! I mean, Meg was right. Dad's vulnerable when he's with us. He's stronger without us around," Dean had said, much to Sam's disappointment and Dad's surprise.

Thinking about it now, Dean remembered how hard it had been to let Dad go, to watch him drive away alone, off to some location that neither of his kids would know. As he watched the taillights disappear down the alley, Dean had promised himself that he wouldn't allow himself or his brother to be used as bait for anything or anyone to get to his father again. And if that meant Sam getting pissed at him or storming off because his curiosity had to go unsustained, then so be it. Dad had to be left alone to work. All they were now were bothersome hurdles when it came to the bigger picture, the grand scheme of things that Dad had to figure out on his own. When that was all said and done, _that_ was the moment they could be a family again. Until then, the brothers had to deal with being by themselves.

However, it seemed as though Sam hadn't arrived at the same conclusion, instead thinking of what he could do to help as soon as he found out what was going on. Though he knew his brother had good intentions, he also knew good intentions paved the road to Hell—and if demons were involved, that wasn't the road they wanted to be on. Unfortunately, no matter how heavy the silence or dark the disapproving stares, it appeared Sam was set in his ways, not budging until he got what he wanted. It was the same mentality Dad had, the one thing, aside from a few facial features, that his brother had inherited from the man. John Winchester's stubbornness was legendary, second only to Sam's.

Suddenly, the tinkling of a bell kicked Dean out of his thoughts. Looking up from where he had been staring at his plate, Dean let the fork drop, clattering against the table loudly. Ultimately, Dean was now too distracted to care. Walking out the glass door of the restaurant toward the small parking lot was a tall, brunette girl dressed in a red University of Louisville t-shirt and jean skirt, her sneakers shuffling against the pavement outside.

Seeming to catch Dean's stare, Sam turned around in his seat to match his older brother's gaze, attempting to find whatever had him sitting so tight-jawed. As soon as Sam caught up to what was going on, a voice from behind the counter called toward the shutting door, solidifying what Dean had already known.

"Kelly! Kelly Taylor!"

Catching the door before it closed all the way, Kelly wrenched it back open to look at the blonde that raced after her, Sam and Dean's waitress from before. As the two grinned at one another, the blonde handed over a while envelope. "Don't want to forget your paycheck."

"Seriously," Kelly laughed, tapping the thing against her thumb in thought and letting her large, green eyes take in the writing on the front. After a long moment, she nodded at the shorter blonde before turning and heading out. "Anyway, see you."

Smirking to the shutting door, the blonde pivoted and headed back in the direction she had appeared from, vanishing behind the counter as she went to help someone on the other side of the diner. Looking away from her, Dean let his gaze fall back on the brunette as she walked down the stretch of sidewalk outside, stopping at the end to pull out a cell phone.

All of a sudden, a series of images flashed before Dean's eyes, memories from the last few hunts he and Sam had been on behind Dad's back. There had been a brunette waitress in Louisville, Kentucky who had used the same name, and had even written her phone number down on the back of their receipt. Unfortunately, Dean had forgotten to call and eventually lost it, forgetting all about the girl. Then there had been a blonde in Green River, Arkansas who looked familiar, but had been under the guise of a police officer—or an Australian bar patron, he couldn't be sure. _Or maybe both_.

Now that he thought about it, Dean remembered thinking he had seen the brunette before when he and Sam had been in the same restaurant a few days ago, though Sam had played it off like he hadn't known who Dean was talking about, probably hoping to prevent his older brother from speaking to her. However, now that he was staring at the girl from a distance, he realized that he _had _seen her before, in three different cities in three different states. She was following them.

Again, more images flashed in front of Dean, these from outside the Penobscot County precinct. Same height, same build, same bustline—even wearing the same jean skirt. She was working with Dad. This girl, whoever she was, was Dad's new partner. And if that were true, that meant their father had been tailing them as well.

Suddenly, everything Dean had been against when it came to sticking his nose in Dad's business was gone. If Dad had been trailing them from state-to-state, there was definitely something up, and it wasn't because he thought the daevas were coming back like he claimed in the phone call Dean had received two months ago. This was something else, something suspicious, something that required someone unknown to both brothers to be recruited in as a spy.

Jumping to his feet, Dean dropped a twenty on the table before heading out, Sam right behind him. Pulling open the door, Dean heard the tinkle again, rolling his eyes at and silently thanking the sound at the same time. At the end of the walkway near the edge of the diner, the brunette glanced up, her eyes widening as she realized the brothers were heading hurriedly for her. Shoving the phone into her pocket, she pushed her back against the stucco of the building, and offered them a small, frightened, half-smile.

"We need to talk to you," Dean said, not bothering with formalities as he stopped directly in front of her, Sam halting at his side and blocking the girl's path back toward the restaurant. Glancing around, Dean noticed a few stragglers outside the front entrance, standing between cars as they talked. "Maybe somewhere more private."

Eyes diverting everywhere but up at Dean and Sam, the girl swallowed hard, her hands visibly shaking as she pointed toward the unlit gravel lot a few yards from the side of the building. Steering her away from where she stood, Dean held onto her elbow while Sam followed behind, his brother's raised eyebrow showing his surprise with the way Dean was grasping onto the stranger. Letting her go, Dean pulled on his earlobe in thought, wondering if he was being too rough on someone who looked just as surprised to see them as they were to see her.

_Something about this isn't right_.

"Who are you?" Dean asked before his thoughts could flood over him and cause him to lose focus on the task at hand. This girl had obviously been tailing them, and if he was forceful with her, it was because he had to be. Someone who was following behind and working with Dad obviously wasn't someone who couldn't handle brusqueness, especially with the way their father dealt with people to begin with.

At the pause in conversation, the girl swallowed hard, her stare finally falling on Sam and Dean as she locked eyes with them. Furrowing his brows, Dean saw something familiar in that stare, something beyond just seeing the girl in a handful of different places. There was a recognizable hardness behind the sage green gaze that matched almost identically with is.

"My name is Amy—Amelia," she said finally. "Amelia Mae."

In the back of his mind, Dean knew that name, but he didn't know why.

Clearing his throat, he shook his head of trying to search out the reason for it, instead turning his glare back down at the girl. She was only a couple of inches shorter than him, with long, shapely legs that lead up to a lean, supple body that reminded him of a dancer. Her face was thin and oval-shaped, punctuated with large eyes, an upturned nose, and full lips. She was pretty, but not overly so, reminding him of someone he had seen on TV a long time ago. However, something about her was off, something far too memorable for Dean to find her attractive. It was as if she reminded him of someone he knew, someone he was close to.

Beside him, Sam fidgeted awkwardly, shoving his hands in his coat pockets as though doing so would make him invisible to the conversation. Glancing up at his brother, Dean furrowed his brow, checking to make sure Sam was alright, before turning back to the girl—Amy. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't—"

"What are you doing in _Maine_?" Dean cut her off, keeping his voice even to keep her talking. "We've seen you all over the place; Kentucky, Arkansas, and now here. Why? Why are you following us? And what are you doing working with our dad?"

"Dean…" Sam warned.

"Your _dad_?" Amy asked, biting her lip and swallowing hard. Letting silence fall, Amy reached up to play with a lock of her hair, twisting the thick set of strands around her finger as she thought. After a long moment, she finally let out a deep breath, seeming to come to the realization that the two men standing in front of her weren't there to hurt her. "He told me you were dangerous, that he needed me to watch you and keep tabs, or surveillance or whatever he said. He said it was part of his mission."

"Mission?" Sam piped up, suddenly jumping into the conversation. "Did he tell you what kind of mission?"

"Some FBI thing, I guess. I saw his badge lying around," Amy answered, bunching her jaw and clearing her throat nervously. "He wouldn't give me any details. Just told me to tell him if I saw you do anything weird—which I haven't, by the way. I started to ask him about it, but he just kind of… got mad."

"Yeah, that sounds like him," Dean muttered, rolling his eyes. "But why you? I mean, no offense, but you don't exactly look like the type of girl to get into this. And I doubt you signed up for the gig."

Sighing, Amy bit her lip again. "I… I don't know."

Shaking his head, Dean scrubbed his face with his hands and peered into the darkness that surrounded the lot. In the distance, the rumble of a truck was audible down the road, cutting through the quiet that was swelling in the thoughtful stillness. Recognizing the noise as the growl of Dad's truck, Dean looked up at Sam and the two exchanged a nod.

Without a second glance, the brothers turned away from Amy and headed back toward the diner, climbing into the Impala outside the entrance and waiting for the black GMC to arrive. When it did, Sam and Dean watched as Amy climbed into the passenger's side and slammed the door, the truck immediately turning and heading back toward the street without pause.

Starting the engine, Dean backed out and followed. Whatever Dad was up to, whatever was going on with this girl, he suddenly had to know. At that moment, Dean could understand Sam's unrequited curiosity, finally able to reciprocate the feeling. Unfortunately, Dean had the sense that whatever they were going to find was something neither brother was going to like, something that possibly had to do with the demon and the reason behind Dean recognizing the name of Amelia Mae.


	13. Eleven

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

ELEVEN

Bayview Super 8  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Saturday, August 5, 2006  
>12:17 AM<p>

**S**am stared out at the lot of the Bayview Super 8 from inside the Impala parked across the street. The gravel stretch that Dad and his partner, Amy, had pulled into five minutes beforehand had been quiet, though slightly illuminated with a thin, yellow triangle due to the door to their room being propped open. Every now and again, Sam could catch glimpses of a shoulder or long, brown hair passing the threshold, but no one had yet to come out—and he doubted it would be awhile before anyone ever would.

Ever since their meeting outside the Perko's with the girl, both Dean and Sam had been silent, both of them running over theories and possibilities in their mind during the stillness. So far, Sam only knew two things that pertained to a reason behind Dad being in town: one, that their father had asked a stranger to keep an eye on them, not telling her the truth about his job and instead pretending to be FBI; and two, that both of them had been following the brothers from town to town. However, none of that shed light on _why_, and the unanswered question was bothering Sam more than he cared to address.

Unfortunately, Sam knew that Dad never did anything without reason, meaning that there had been something up his father's sleeve from the get-go. If he had to guess, it probably started the day Dad had called his sons from that payphone in Minneapolis, telling Sam and Dean to stay put in Fort Wayne until he gave word to let them return to business as usual. And if he was right in thinking that, then why drag a stranger into it? And why leave her under the impression that Dad wasn't a Hunter, but a Fed? None of it made any sense.

Then again, that was the way Dad worked—never explaining anything and expecting everyone to follow his lead without question. It was possible that this girl, whoever she was, was qualified in some way Sam couldn't comprehend at the moment, making her the first choice on Dad's short roster of sidelined people for a surveillance job. Ultimately, just judging by the way she had been acting outside of the diner, Sam had a feeling that wasn't the reason she was there. The girl had been nervous and uncomfortable, looking as though she expected Sam or Dean to throw her into the back of some shady van at a moment's notice. Whether or not that was due to the fact that Dad had told her his sons were dangerous, that was still unsaid. The fact of the matter was, though, that this girl, this Amy, wasn't a Hunter—that much was clear.

"Dude, twelve o'clock," Dean muttered suddenly, snapping Sam out of his thoughts.

Glancing up, Sam's gaze met Dean's as they both stared across the street. Pulling into the lot was a yellow taxicab, its overhead light off as it rolled to a stop behind Dad's black truck. From inside the open threshold strode Amy, an oversized duffle bag and laptop case swung over her shoulder. As she yanked open one of the doors to the backseat, throwing her belongings angrily into the free space, it was clear that something had happened. A moment later and she was in the cab, the door slamming shut behind her as the taxi reversed back onto the street.

By the time the taillights were nothing but a faded glow down the road, Dean was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, his face showing the debate that was battling inside his head. Sam knew that his brother was still fighting the drilled-in obedience that Dad had instilled in him after years of commands, but he also knew Dean was just as curious as Sam when it came to finding out what was going on.

Finally, after a long minute, Dean popped open the driver's side door and climbed out into the cold night. Frowning, Sam waited a minute, wondering what his brother was planning on doing. Glancing across the street, he could see that the door to Dad's motel room was now closed, and he doubted the man would open it again, no matter how many times Dean knocked or yelled through the thin slab of wood.

"You coming or what?" Dean snapped.

Nodding, Sam got out of the car and quietly shut the door behind him. Exchanging a glance, Dean started across the street, looking back every few minutes to make sure Sam was still trailing behind him. Something about this felt wrong, like the two of them were about to about to either be reprimanded or given an earful of information they wouldn't like. As they walked, Sam felt as though everything had been slowed, as though his legs were moving through stirring water. He had experienced this before, the night he had walked into his apartment right before Jessica's fire, and hadn't felt the sensation since. The feeling usually signaled bad news, and Sam had reason to believe this wasn't about to be any different.

Reaching the other side of the road, Sam took a deep breath and paused before following his brother to the closed door of room three. The last time he had been there, Sam hadn't felt anything but bubbling anger and a need to discover why Dad was in town. Now he felt as though he'd rather find out what was going on by himself rather than have to deal with hearing it through Dad's lips. However, Sam knew that feeling was due mostly to the fact that in order to find out what was happening, he would have to endure an hour or more of berating, and, in all honesty, that was something that he'd rather skip. He had heard the same lecture from his father most of his life—"follow my lead; don't ask questions; don't move until I say it's okay"—and had practically memorized every word of the sermon. Hearing it again would do nothing but unleash a heated argument between father and son.

Unfortunately, before Sam could suggest they try a different route, Dean had his fist raised to pound on the door. Doing so, the two waited in silence for the archway to open up and reveal Dad in his thinned, exhausted glory. Ultimately, nothing happened. Instead, the lights inside dimmed, flickering every now and again from what was undoubtedly a television inside.

Furrowing his brow, Sam sighed. "Maybe we should—"

Before he could get the rest of the sentence out, however, the sound of splintering wood cracked through the night. Letting out a sharp breath of surprise, Sam's eyes widened and fell on Dean just as his brother lowered his leg to stand firmly on the ground. Right below the handle, the door was now bowed in, its knob leaning toward the ground from where Dean had just kicked it. As it swung back to hit the wall, embedding itself in the sheetrock behind it, Dean crossed the threshold. Swallowing hard, Sam followed him inside to find Dad sitting calmly at the edge of his bed, not moving upon his sons' entrance.

Glancing over at Dean, Sam saw that his brother's angered look from outside had vanished, now replaced with one of empathy. Dad looked worse than he had the day before, even more paled and tired, now with an added sadness in his slumped shoulders. Tilting his head, Sam attempted to see whether or not his father had noticed his kids behind him, instead seeing that his Dad's eyes were closed and his head was bowed forward against his pressed hands. If he hadn't known better, Sam would have assumed his father was in prayer, but John Winchester had never been a particularly religious man. Instead, he seemed overly tired and completely unaware—which wasn't like Dad at all.

"Dad?" Dean asked, bending forward to place his hand on the man's shoulder and shake him. "Dad, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Dad muttered after a long moment.

"We, uh," Dean started, swallowing hard as though daring himself to say the next few words—though in comparison to the break-in, Sam doubted whatever his brother said would be considered outrageous. "We need to talk to you about something."

Finally opening his eyes, Dad looked up to peer into Dean's sage green stare, the hazel looking bleak and rimmed with red. It was clear that Dad hadn't slept for at least a month, and probably hadn't eaten in just as long. As he got to his feet, Sam could see that his father's frame was dwindled beneath the black wool coat he wore, balancing on his shoulders like a coat hanger rather than a person. Sam knew he, himself, had looked that way during the months following Jessica's death, refusing to eat or sleep because of the nightmares and the fact that his stomach wouldn't hold down food. But Dad, as far as Sam knew, hadn't lost anyone close to him—if Dad was even remotely close to anybody.

"What are you doing here, boys? Didn't I give you a case to work?" Dad asked.

"We finished it already," Sam answered, nodding.

Seeming unimpressed, Dad frowned. "Then what?"

Looking over at his brother, Sam exchanged a grimace before taking the floor. It appeared as though Dean had returned to his normal self, the part of him that wasn't angry enough to break down doors, but instead the ever-obedient son of a tough-as-nails Marine. He knew Dean would add into the conversation eventually, but for now needed time to get himself together before opening his mouth.

Sighing, Sam slumped his shoulders. "Dad… what's going on?"

"I…" Turning his gaze to look at the newspaper-tacked wall behind his sons, Dad's tired eyes scanned the clippings. All three of them knew Sam had already been inside to investigate, and they also knew that, thanks to the way they had entered the room, neither Sam nor Dean would be satisfied with a short answer. For some reason, probably due to Dad's weakened state, it seemed as though the time to get everything out in the open was now, and even their father's mentality of keeping everything a secret wasn't holding up to the way the night was progressing—first with the discovery of Dad's partner's name, then with the unearthing of the fact that their father had ordered them to be watched.

Slumping back down on the bed, Dad nodded toward the disheveled one across from him. "Take a seat, boys."

Doing as asked, Sam perched on the edge of the mattress while Dean remained standing, his arms crossed over his chest as his eyes stayed focused on Dad's. In his expression, concern and respect were clear, as were curiosity and a childlike fascination. It was the same look Dean often had whenever their father was about to tell them something particularly important. Sam had seen it on his brother's face when they were younger, back when Dad would give an asking Dean snippets of details about the case he was working. Even now, at twenty-seven, it appeared as though Dean still had that youthful adoration of his father, one that wouldn't disappear no matter how angry he was at the moment.

Letting out a deep breath, Dad leaned forward to place his elbows on his knees, his gaze flickering between both of his sons before finally landing on Sam. For a long moment, the two stared at each other before Dad opened his mouth to speak.

"I was following a trail," he began, "started up north before moving west. At first, I thought it might be nothing but coincidence, but then I realized it was more than that. It was the demon."

Glancing over at Dean, Sam noticed that his brother hadn't looked away.

"Started in Washington, heading south," Dad continued slowly, his eyes turning onto Dean as well, "where it started lighting up around where I was in Oregon and California before it suddenly went dark. I thought it was going after me, maybe figured out I was onto it and trying to put a stop to it. But then it reappeared when the girl took the swan dive in Illinois, then Minnesota at the tail end of May. After that, the pattern moved south again, like it had picked a new target."

"That's why you called us in Fort Wayne to put us on lockdown," Sam said without question, earning a nod from Dad. "You wanted us to stay out of its way."

"I did. And I was right to do so," Dad replied. "As soon as you two went underground, everything stopped. It didn't start again until you left for Kentucky. I thought it was following you—and I was right. Every city you boys worked cases in, the demon wasn't far behind. I seemed to get there before that, but it didn't stay long enough for me to catch up to it. It just moved onto wherever you two might be headed next."

Furrowing his brow, Sam shot a look at the newsprint on the wall. Getting to his feet, he crossed over to it while Dad continued speaking, noticing that his father was telling the truth. Every city near where Sam and Dean had worked jobs instead of following their father's commanded hiding had been marked with an article about cattle mutilations and lightning storms. Apparently, these two things signaled a trail of demons. What it didn't point out, however, was why the thing was following the brothers in the first place.

"I don't know why it's after you," Dad answered, seeming to read Sam's mind. "I didn't notice the pattern until after you had already left."

Pausing, Dad pinched the bridge of his nose in a way similar to Sam whenever he felt a headache coming on. Frowning, Sam returned to the bed, leaning forward slightly in case his father collapsed in front of him, which looked plausible considering his appearance. When he seemed secure in his perch, Sam relaxed, sitting farther back on the mattress and tapping his fingers against the knee of his jeans.

"Dad, maybe you should get some sleep," Sam suggested calmly, knowing what his father's answer was going to be before he finished his sentence.

Shaking his head, Dad smiled wryly, a sadness coming with the gesture. "I haven't slept since it started. I haven't had time. Keeping up with the demon is a full-time job. It never sleeps and it never stops."

"Maybe eat—" Sam started.

"Sammy, please," Dad said, his tone gruffer than before as he held up a hand to halt his son's suggestions. "I can take care of myself. I don't need you or your brother watching out for me."

"What about that girl?" Dean asked quietly, finally speaking up. "Amy, or Amelia, or whatever he name is. How long's she been around? She been taking care of you?"

Letting out a deep sigh, Dad furrowed his brows and rubbed his hands together absently. Sam knew that gesture well, one that usually signaled a piece of information their father didn't want to give. However, since the ball was already rolling, Sam couldn't see a reason to stop, especially when it came to divulging the final piece of the puzzle.

"I picked Amelia up from her family in Illinois before the run-in with the demon's trap in Chicago and after I realized what it was doing," Dad said slowly. "You boys were walking right into the lion's den, and I needed someone to watch you, to make sure you were okay and making smart decisions, someone you didn't know. I also thought she might be in trouble; the type her adoptive parents couldn't protect her from."

"Trouble?" Dean frowned. "Why? The demon's gunning for me and Sam, not her."

"I thought it might be going after the whole family," Dad said heavily, his eyes dropping to the ground as he spoke. "After running into the thing in Peoria, I didn't know if it might go after her next, but it was more than likely given the circumstances. If it wasn't you, it had to be her. She was the only other option; the only one left with the Winchester name."

"But that still doesn't explain—" Dean began harshly, stopping abruptly and turning his attention over to Sam as his brother gasped in revelation. "Sammy?"

Suddenly, everything clicked, everything Sam had been too blind to notice. Dad hadn't shown up late to the demon's trap in Chicago because he was lying in wait, trying to survey the situation before barging in like Sam had originally thought, their father had been elsewhere, retrieving the girl, Amy, from somewhere within the state. It explained why he hadn't been there the majority of the time the brothers were in town then, too, and also why he took off so quickly after the second run-in with the daevas. Dad had had his mind elsewhere, on a younger girl who needed protection just as much as his sons.

It also explained two more things, now that Sam thought about it. First was the reason why Dad had removed pages from his journal. Somewhere inside, it probably laid out enough information for the brothers to piece together the truth, enough for them to figure out exactly _what _Dad was doing with this girl rather than leaving them in the dark like he obviously preferred. And second, where Sam had heard the name Amelia Mae before.

"_I thought it might be going after the whole family._ _She was the only other option; the only one left with the Winchester.._."

The sentences rang out in Sam's head as he pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache forming as he considered what had been so obvious from the start. Why hadn't he seen it sooner? Why hadn't he realized it sooner? The girl wasn't just some stranger Dad happened to be hunting with, some unknown contact to Sam and Dean. She was something to him that Sam hadn't even thought, something that hadn't even crossed his mind until now; until the gears finally clicked in his head over where he had heard that name before, where he had seen those curious green eyes before, and where he recognized that color of brown hair before. That name belonged to someone Sam had never met, someone on Dad's side of the family that had died before Sam had been born, though mentioned once or twice in passing sometime during his childhood. He _knew _he recognized it from somewhere, but hadn't been able to place it until now.

_ Amelia Mae was grandma's name_.

Opening his mouth, Sam let out a sharp breath. There was no other option. Dad didn't have any other living relatives aside from his kids, no brothers or sisters that would have spawned cousins, and neither had Mom. It was the only thing left. The only truth that was in any way plausible, no matter how much he didn't want to believe it.

Swallowing hard, Sam glanced over at his brother before looking back at Dad, noticing that his father knew the comprehension that had dawned on his youngest son, the betrayal that Sam had unearthed in the last few minutes.

Suddenly his heart felt heavy and his lungs felt constrained. Despite all that, despite the fact that Sam wanted to scream rather than talk, he somehow managed to open his mouth and speak the words he didn't want to say: "She's our _sister_?"

Slumping his shoulders, Dad shuddered with shame. "Yes."


	14. Twelve

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

TWELVE

Bayview Super 8  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Saturday, August 5, 2006  
>1:28 AM<p>

**D**ean's head was swimming as anger rippled through him. How his brother had deduced that fact so quickly and seamlessly, he didn't want to know nor cared to know. Instead, all Dean cared about was the rage bubbling inside, the lies his father had told him and Sam, and the reason behind his father keeping this harrowing secret for so long.

As soon as Dad reaffirmed what Sam had figured out on his own, Dean had to fight back the urge to scream, to throw things, to kick open another door. He thought he had been angry outside, angry enough to bust into his father's motel room against his better instincts, but that was incomparable to how Dean felt now. Suddenly, everything made sense. Everything that happened from Chicago on, after the demon had attacked the three of them in the brothers' motel room and Dad had left town. He had been late, not because he had just arrived in town like Dean had originally thought, but because he had gone to find their—

He couldn't say it. She wasn't part of their family. She was a stranger, nothing more, and that was all she would ever be. Sam, Dean, and John Winchester. That was it. _They _were a family; not this girl.

Not ever.

Grinding his teeth together in fury, Dean tried to contain himself for Sam, who seemed to be sitting at the edge of the second mattress in shock and disbelief. His brother's eyes were hardened in a way Dean hadn't seen before, holding an expression Dean doubted was dissimilar to the one on his own face. Sam's jaw was bunched together in anger, his lips making a thin line every so often whenever he swallowed hard. Across from him, Dad's torso was bent forward with indignity, his hands pressed beneath his face just like the way he had them positioned when Sam and Dean had first entered.

It was funny, in an ironic way, how the tables had turned, how John Winchester's sons had suddenly become the ones with a legitimate grievance instead of their father, who had always been the angry one of the family—aside from Sam's small bouts. Now they were the ones allowed to be roaring with rage, to give Dad an ear-full, rather than the other way around. However, that wasn't a power that Dean wanted to use, no matter how much his insides were teeming with fury—and it seemed, neither did Sam.

On the bed, Sam still hadn't moved, his fingers still poised over the knee of his jeans as though getting ready to continue tapping absently. Ultimately, it was becoming clear that the shock was wearing off and that unwanted curiosity was beginning to ensue. Dean knew his brother had questions—hell, _he _had questions—and that the only way he was going to use the turned tables was to get the answers from their father. Sam had always been the curious one, and it seemed that even in this situation that still held true—despite the fact that the inquisitions probably had answers neither brother honestly wanted to uncover.

"Does she know?" Sam asked slowly. "About anything?"

"No," Dad sighed, rubbing his face with his hands in a way that Dean often did whenever he was nervous or thinking. "She doesn't know anything. She didn't ask."

"Not that you'd have told her, right?" Dean scoffed.

"No, I wouldn't," Dad said, a hint of anger in his tone.

"She doesn't know who we are? Who you are? She just got in the car with you and took off? Smart girl," Dean commented, rolling his eyes.

"She knows I'm her father," Dad explained slowly, rubbing his hands together absently. "And she is smart. She's a lot like you, Sammy."

"Don't," Sam snapped, narrowing his eyes. "Don't."

Silence fell over the room as Sam and Dean glared at their father, occasionally exchanging glances with one another. It was clear that neither of them knew how to handle the news, nor knew what to say. It was as if Dad had laid down an even heavier truth on them than before, one that beat out the reality that monsters, demons, and whatever else was hiding under the bed was really there. Back then, back when Dean had discovered what his father really did for a living instead of the cover that Dad was a traveling salesman, he had fought back the urge to cry. Even at five years old, he hadn't been able to shed tears over something so earth-shattering. But now, something about his father's deep betrayal, the fact that the man he had looked up to his entire life would father another child and would hurt Mom and her memory in that way, he was having a hard time containing his emotions. A glance over at his brother told him that Sam was experiencing the same battle—though losing judging by the redness of his eyes.

For some reason, Dean wanted to leave, to take Sam back to the motel and figure out what their next move was. It was the method they used whenever dealing with a particularly distressing case, and it had been the first thing Dean had done for Sam directly after Jessica had died. They had grown up in motel rooms, it had been their home, their safe place, and there was no reason why they wouldn't be able to center themselves there now.

However, Dean had a feeling that, like with Jessica's death, a trip back to their dank rent-a-room wasn't going to solve the problem, nor make either of them feel better. All it would do would leave both brothers in a pensive silence until both of them decided to leave to sort this out in their own way.

Suddenly, Dad got to his feet and crossed the room. Raising an eyebrow in surprise, Dean watched as his father began to throw things into his duffle bag, letting shirts and papers fall sloppily into the bottom as he stuffed them into his threadbare luggage.

_Unbelievable_.

"Just like that, huh?" Dean scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief. "You're just gonna drop this on us and leave?"

"Yes," Dad muttered, stopping what he was doing to look up. For a long moment, Dean stared into his father's hazel eyes, noticing that there was a forlornness hidden behind them. After the minute passed, Dad continued his packing, glancing up every now and then to look between Sam and Dean. "I suggest you do the same. You boys aren't safe here. None of us are."

Pursing his lips, Dean shot a look at his brother. On the bed, Sam was bent forward, his head tilted down as his thumb and forefinger pinched the bridge of his nose. It was clear that Sam was trying to make sense of everything on his own but struggling, especially with all the commotion Dad was making. Finally, Sam got to his feet and crossed over to the wall of newspapers again, staring at the mark-up Dad had put together. As he watched, Dean tried to figure out how that girl couldn't have seen the strangeness of the prints tacked to the sheetrock—unless she had and hadn't said anything. Lightning storms and cattle mutilations weren't exactly things the FBI was interested in, and the cats' eye shells around the door wasn't exactly something the Feds would use for protection.

Rolling his eyes, Dean glanced away from Sam to look at their father. Over at the table squeezed between the bed and the wall, Dad was removing the salt line he had made in the windowsill, reminding Dean of all the times his father had ordered him to do the same before they got ready to check out.

In all honesty, Dean didn't care one way or another if Dad left him and Sam alone to stew in their juices, but the fact that the man was bailing directly after dropping one bomb after another on them bothered him more than he would admit. But that was the way his father worked: leave a vital piece of information hanging in the air without any explanation and ditch out before giving any details. Growing up, Dean hadn't minded, thinking whatever was not said to be a hint that he needed to figure it out himself. However, Dean was getting tired of solving Dad's puzzles. He had been doing it for the past ten months—and the past two decades before that—and now all he wanted were some straight answers. At first, when his father had begun to explain things, Dean thought he was finally going to get the full scoop, both when it came to why Dad was trailing behind his sons and with what was going on with the demon his father had been hunting for the past twenty years. Unfortunately, he had only gotten half that, plus another piece of gut-wrenching information to go along with it.

Beside him, Sam sighed loudly, rolling his head back to look at the ceiling as though some other revelation had broken through in his mind. When he was done, Sam returned his gaze to the set of articles lining where the east coast would be on a map, his eyes scanning two snippets Dean remembered seeing while working the job the two of them had just finished. The first detailed the murder of Tyler Durden, while the other was a small obituary on Jason Wright. Furrowing his brow, Dean waited for Sam to say something. Ultimately, all his brother did was keep his mouth shut.

"What?" Dean muttered after a minute, frowning.

"It's just…" Sam trailed off a moment before taking a deep breath. "The people that died; one had a girlfriend that went to Stanford and another was a lawyer. Then there's all this information about the demon being in town, and it kind of makes me think…"

"That it's not a coincidence?" Dean grimaced.

"Yeah."

"But that guy was a spirit."

Shrugging, Sam sighed and turned around, his eyes falling on Dad as he zipped up the rest of his belongings and threw the bag over his shoulder. Dean could tell that his brother was disappointed, both in the news they had received and in the way their father was dealing with it. Truthfully, Dean couldn't blame Sammy for being so disheartened. In the old days, back before Sam left for Stanford and Dad abandoned his eldest son to follow some lead, their father would have stuck beside them and rode out whatever problem came their way. Now Dad was nothing but flighty and reclusive, choosing to hide rather than fight and ditching town whenever things got too heavy. It was as if their father had become a shell of his former self, or like something had happened or been said that had changed his outlook on hunting altogether.

But that was their father: secretive, selective, and otherwise capricious. Whatever was going on, whatever Big Bad was trailing behind Sam and Dean, Dean doubted Dad would share that information. Hell, telling them that something was following them in the first place had been more than Dad had shared in a long while. The man did what he wanted _when_ he wanted and was careless of the consequences, and it seemed that, now that Sam and Dean were a team again and hunting on their own, becoming reckless for their sake was out of the question. In the past, Dad would have walked through hot lava to get to his sons if they were in trouble, now it appeared as though they were on their own. In fact, Dean thought, it _was _that way. When Sam had called their father when Dean was dying from heart failure after being electrocuted by his own taser, there hadn't been any sort of answer. When Sam and Dean had headed back to Lawrence to check out a vision Sam had had the night before, Dean had called for help and received nothing in return. But still, despite all that, Dean had kept faith in his father, stood up for him whenever Sam was intent on bad-mouthing him, and had nearly convinced himself that the man hadn't changed—just gone AWOL. Unfortunately, now that Dad was planning to leave them in the middle of an emotional time, in the middle of an unveiling of a secret that had been under wraps for the past twenty years the three of them had been hunting together, Dean couldn't stand up for him any longer. Their father had left them, and was leaving them again, and there was nothing Dean could say or do that could defend that action—not that he wanted to in the first place.

However, Dean had a feeling his mind was going to change on the subject as soon as his father's taillights were nothing but a memory down the road. After years of obediently taking orders and rationalizing the man's decisions, Dean knew that his mind was immediately going to gloss over everything that had happened to make it seem as though it hadn't been as bad as it was. It was a type of denial that Dean had patented, something that was probably eating away the lining of his stomach just like the alcohol he drank to bury it was eating at his liver. But that was the job, and that was the way Dad was, and nothing either of them did was going to change that.

Clearing his throat, Dean raised his eyebrows as he watched his father head for the door. To his left, Sam stepped forward, holding out a hand as though wishing to stop John Winchester and appeal to his softer side. Instead, Dad ignored it and headed to his truck, tossing his duffle bags into the passenger's seat and climbing in. Through the windshield, Dean could see Dad in the glass, his hard eyes filled with sadness as he started the engine.

Suddenly, Dean was reminded of a younger Sam as his brother raced to the threshold and stopped just as Dad began to pull out of his space. When the truck was rolling out of the lot, Dean followed his brother onto the sidewalk, watching as the taillights disappeared around the corner, heading toward the freeway. Biting his lip, Dean clapped his hand comfortingly on his brother's shoulder and squeezed hard as the two stood there a moment, staring at the spot the glowing red had been a second before.

After a long minute, the two finally broke apart, crossing the gravel lot and slowly making their way toward the Impala across the street.


	15. Epilogue

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

EPILOGUE

Bayview Lodge  
>Bayview, Maine<br>Saturday, August 5, 2006  
>7:34 AM<p>

**S**am now understood how Dad could look so tired and wasted away. In the mirror in front of him, Sam could see his own reflection staring back at him as he continued to pack the toiletries that had found themselves in various places in and around the sink. His chestnut hair was matted in front, shading the darkened green eyes underneath, and causing his pale face to look even more pallid than it had a few days before. Again, his clothes hung off his frame, but that could be attributed solely to the fact that they didn't belong to him.

Before leaving Dad's motel room to be picked over by the maid service, Sam and Dean had recrossed the parking lot and returned inside to search through the few-and-far-between things his father had left behind. In the cleared-out space, he had only found two items that seemed worth saving: his father's black t-shirt and a sterling silver cross with a small diamond inlay. For some reason, despite the fact that Dean told him to leave both behind, Sam couldn't. Mainly, he wanted the t-shirt for the obvious reason that all of his were in the to-be-washed pile, but as for the cross… something about him told him to spare it, as though the piece of delicate jewelry had some kind of meaning hidden inside.

After returning to the Bayview Lodge, Sam had spent half the night turning the crucifix over his fingers, wrapping and rewrapping the chain around his thumb absently as he searched the web for anything he could on this girl. In his hours of searching, and hours of having to hear Dean try to convince him to give it a rest, Sam had only uncovered a handful of things about her. According to a hack in Yale University's admissions records, Amelia Mae Winchester was a twenty-year-old drama major who had been adopted by Joel and Jennifer Forester back in November of 1985. Though that didn't explain much aside from the acting books Sam had found inside Dad's room during his initial search of the place, it was enough to quell his curiosity for now.

However, the satisfaction hadn't been enough to allow Sam more than an hour of sleep. During the middle of the night, he had awoken several times to stare up at the ceiling, wondering what Dad was doing now or where he was planning on going. If the demon had changed directions after discovering Dad was onto it and instead choosing to trail Sam and Dean, was it still after them? Or had it given up there, too? And what was with the selective killings behind the spirit of Alan Gregory? Were those two victims murdered as a message to Sam, or was it coincidence that the men had ties to him—albeit distant ones?

Unfortunately, the only person who would truly know was now somewhere miles from Maine, probably on a freeway headed west toward Colorado or California. It had been a mistake to let Dad go, to let him walk away as though the conversation was finished or that everything Sam and Dean needed to discover was easy enough to unearth. There had been so much more the man could have told his sons; but once again, he had decided to leave it hanging in the air, another mystery unsolved.

The thought alone was enough to make Sam angry. In fact, whatever Dad had left unsaid was enough to cause Dean to begin to act erratic. Twice after returning to their motel room, Dean had left to head to some bar, only to return minutes later and decide against it. Following that, he had suddenly determined that he was hungry, before remembering the incident at the Perko's and swearing aloud. After awhile, he had done nothing but strip off his jacket and perch himself against the headboard of his bed, changing channels with the remote as he continually asked Sam what he was doing and why—seemingly never satisfied with the answer. Finally landing on _I Dream of Jeannie_ after the remote batteries had been worn to the ground, Dean had taken to a sullen silence, staring at the screen and cursing at Major Nelson whenever he tried to keep Jeannie trapped in her bottle.

In all honesty, Sam was surprised his brother hadn't gone out to buy a cheap case of beer to settle down with. In the past, that seemed to be Dean's solution to every problem, bury it with alcohol and let Sam figure it out, but it appeared as if this time he wanted to sort through the issue on his own—which Sam was undoubtedly grateful for. The indecisive way in which his brother was acting mixed with liquor would have proved dangerous, and that, on top of everything else that had been laid on them, was not something Sam wanted to deal with. And it seemed as though Dean was fully aware of that fact.

By morning, thankfully, everything appeared normal again, with Dean's bout of inconsistent behavior gone and replaced with a silent calm, while Sam was tired and ready to move onto greener pastures. It had begun to rain again, though not as heavy as the evening the brothers had been at Restfield Cemetery, but enough for Sam to be tired of the downpour already. As soon as he had "woken up", making sure to prepare a pot of coffee for Dean to keep his brother from remaining the surly way he had been the night before, Sam had searched the Internet for jobs in the southwest, hoping to find something in the sunnier parts of the States. Unfortunately, no results had turned up, leaving Sam with nothing to do but gather his things while Dean continued sleeping.

After awhile, Dean had risen from the way he had been tossing and turning, immediately kicking his way out of the covers in favor of his early-morning java. When he was done, after taking a quick walk outside in the rain, he had begun to work alongside his brother in collecting their belongings, making sure to check every nook and cranny for something that might have fallen hidden. It was something Dad had taught them growing up, to never leave anything behind—though the man didn't seem to live by his own words judging by what Sam had found in his room.

_In fact_,Sam thought spitefully, rolling his eyes while Dean checked under the bed, _there are a lot of hypocritical things Dad says to do but doesn't himself._

Kicking the bubbling anger away just as Dean got to his feet, Sam looked at his brother in the mirror before zipping up the last of their things and tossing it into the duffle hanging from the crook of his arm. When he was finished, he flung the bag by its straps over to Dean's waiting hands and turned to give his side of the room a once-over. The area was covered with towels piled in the corner, fast-food containers overflowing in the bins, and used shampoo bottles in the sink, but otherwise free of any trace that a Winchester had been there. Checking beneath the towels to make sure nothing was hiding underneath, Sam nodded to himself before digging his hands in his jeans' pockets, feeling the necklace he had dropped in there prior to getting ready for bed the night before.

Through the doorway, Sam could see his brother pushing aside their dirty laundry bag in the trunk of the Impala to make room for their other equipment. When he was done, he slammed the lid shut and spun the car's key ring over his index finger, shooting his brother a curious glance through the open archway as though silently asking what he was still doing inside. Nodding toward him, Sam made his way out, sealing the room off behind him.

"We already checked out?" Sam asked as he stopped beside his brother, noticing that his hands were free of motel keys.

"Did it while you were staring at yourself in the mirror," Dean commented.

"That was fast."

"That's what she said," Dean grinned.

"Dude," Sam smirked, "even _I_ know that was bad."

Laughing, Dean shook his head and rounded to the driver's side of the Impala, opening the door and climbing in. Doing the same, Sam stopped a moment to stare at the L-shaped stretch of motel rooms before slipping into the passenger's seat. Water blotted the windshield of the car as drizzling rain began to patter against the glass. For a moment, both Sam and Dean sat in silence to appreciate the sound, letting the cold from outside waft in through the cracks between the doors and the body of the Impala.

After a minute, Dean started the engine, the gravelly roar engulfing the monotonous rhythm like a monster waking from a deep sleep. Soon following, the quiet strains of _Back in Black _started over again, the heavy bass beating in between growls of horsepower as Dean pulled out of the stall outside of room seven and headed toward Kubrick Road.

* * *

><p>"<em>Flight 1727 from Bangor International to Chicago O'Hare is now boarding. Please take all carry-on luggage and boarding passes to Gate 3 for assistance." <em>

Hitching her purse farther up her shoulder, Amy Winchester stared at the snaking line in front of her. Businessmen, vacationing families, and solo travelers stretched out before her, each of them conversing with one another about how long the wait time was or how long they thought it was going to take for the flight to get off the ground.

From where she stood near the back, Amy sorted through the hundreds of slips of paper the attendant at the front desk had given her, trying to find the small folder containing the tickets she had bought with her mom's credit card. Jennifer Forester was going to be pissed that Amy had used her card instead of her own, just like she had been the night John Winchester had whisked Amy away from the charity gala her parents were throwing, but that card was the only one she could find in her distracted state of mind—and she was certain Jennifer would understand, especially since flying half-way across the country after what she had just experienced in Bayview was harrowing enough.

In all honesty, Amy should have known not to allow herself to be stolen away from Northbrook to join a stranger on some wild goose chase, but when Joel insisted that she head off with the man, her _real _father, requesting her help, she couldn't find a proper way to say no. Instead, she had agreed and packed as lightly as possible, bidding her brothers Thomas and Tristan goodnight before heading out, promising that she would be back before school started to make sure they got sent off properly.

As the line moved forward a little, Amy finally retrieved her boarding pass and breathed a sigh of relief. Everything, for at least the past two months, had been going awry, starting with the moment she had climbed into the truck belonging to a man claiming to be her father. Since then, the guy had been surly and silent, making Amy feel awkward and slightly afraid. John hadn't explained anything, only that they were headed to Minneapolis to follow a lead, leaving Amy to sort the rest out herself. When they had gotten a pair of motel rooms in some out-of-the-way place far from the Interstate, she had been certain she had made a mistake, locking herself inside her own room and closing the curtains.

After awhile, she had begun to loosen up, even sometimes heading through the adjoining door when she was certain John wasn't there. Gingerly picking through his things, she found an FBI badge and a few, disassembled handguns that looked like they were getting prepped to be cleaned. The only worrying thing she had stumbled upon was the writing on the wall and the articles tacked in some sort of pattern. However, after reading them, she saw that they were nothing but innocuous write-ups about local farm slaughters, finding no meaning in them except for the fact that it seemed the government was interested in it.

As weeks passed with barely any appearance from John, Amy had quietly wondered what she was doing there. He had said he needed her help with something, but hadn't said what, and leaving her alone in a motel room certainly wasn't it. Deciding that she needed something to do, she had taken a job at the diner perched at the edge of the motel's lot, before John suddenly decided that they had somewhere else to be. Packing up, she had allowed him to take her to Kentucky, where she had done more of the same—getting a job at a diner and staying in her own room—before he had finally cracked in giving her information. There was someone that needed to be watched, two men who were dangerous, and they needed to have eyes kept on them at all times. All she had to do was continue working and find a name no one would know, then give him details at the end of the night. It had seemed easy enough—or, well, easy until they had arrived in Maine.

According to John, their supply of money was dwindling, meaning that the two of them were going to have to stop splitting rooms. When Amy suggested that she could pay for her own accommodations, since she had enough money for the both of them, John had become silent and surly again, giving her the feeling that there was a reason behind their sharing—a reason she didn't find out until she threatened to leave.

Outside of the Perko's in Brewer, two men had approached her, the ones she had been ordered to watch, but not to hunt down the spy like she had originally thought. She had known upon following John's orders that the two of them were going to recognize her, and probably the name she used, but hadn't expected the reason why. Those two men hadn't been convicted criminals on the run from the FBI, or whatever her mind had come up with while she wiped down tables and took orders, they had been her… family.

_Only not_, Amy reminded herself. She had a family already; two parents and two brothers whom she had grown up with in the suburbs of Illinois. All these people were to her were strangers, John included, and nothing else. And that was all they were going to remain.

After returning to the shared motel room, Amy had confronted John about what his sons had said, bringing up the fact that the "targets" has used the words "our dad" when they had been questioning her in the parking lot. When he said nothing, only telling her that if she didn't stay with him, she would be in trouble, Amy had begun to leave, suddenly unable to trust John Winchester any more than he seemed to trust her with information. At the final moment, he had spilled the beans, telling her that there was something dangerous after them, after _all _of them, before slamming the door shut behind her.

Unfortunately, her moment of rash decision-making, which didn't happen often, had resulted in the fact that she had to spend the night in the airport before a flight to Chicago opened up. In all honesty, it hadn't been bad, especially since half the stores were open twenty-four hours, but all she wanted was to go home and get a few weeks of sleep before heading back to Yale for her final year of college. If someone, or "something", truly was after her, she doubted whatever it was could find her in the secluded, gated-off area of Northbrook, Illinois anyway. The nightly security alone kept anyone they didn't recognize out of the complex in the first place.

Running her hands through her hair, Amy let the tangled, brunette trusses fall over her shoulders as she finally reached the gate. Handing her ticket to the lady standing smiling behind the podium, she waited for the slip of paper to be scanned and passed back. Hitching her purse farther up her shoulder, Amy rubbed the lack of sleep from her eyes before stuffing her ticket into her bag and heading toward the plane.

_God, I just want to be home_.


End file.
